Accounting profession excels at 10th Women in Finance Awards 2026

There are many auditors in the running for a trophy at this year’s awards, including two representatives from National Audits Group, one from HLB Mann Judd, and another from The SMSF Foundation.

Bookkeepers from Professional Bookkeeping Service, AFI Balance, Bit by Bit Bookkeeping, and others will vie for an award at the gala ceremony later this year.

Entrepreneurs, principals, innovators, and mentors in the tax and accounting profession have also been named finalists.

In addition, companies have been recognised for their wellness and women’s community program initiatives, including Donald and Co. Accounting Services, Latitude Accountants, and Palfreyman Chartered Accountants.

Click here to view the full list of finalists.

A total of almost 240 finalists have been chosen from 625 submissions for the 10th annual Women in Finance Awards 2026 across 22 individual and five group categories. The categories cover the full career spectrum, from executives, principals, and thought leaders to the young leaders of tomorrow.

The pioneering awards – hosted by Momentum Media, Accountants Daily, Accounting Times and other financial services titles – celebrate the achievements of the top-performing women in the industry who have set the benchmark for excellence.

As AI transforms customer experience and regulatory expectations continue to evolve, businesses and professionals are navigating increasing complexity around tax reform, rising compliance costs, the costs of running a small business, and sustainability reporting requirements, alongside heightened competition and changing customer needs.

In this environment, this year’s finalists have set strategy, driven transformation, led high-performing teams, strengthened governance, delivered commercial growth, and created better outcomes for clients, businesses, and the wider community.

This year’s Women in Finance Awards will recognise excellence across auditing, accounting, bookkeeping, and the wider financial services and banking sectors. They will honour the women making an outstanding contribution across banking, lending, wealth management, fintech, customer experience, technology, operations, risk, compliance, product innovation and executive leadership. 

The awards recognise the leadership, expertise and impact shaping the future of Australia’s financial services and banking industry.

This recognition could help finalists and winners build their professional profile and industry reputation while strengthening credibility with clients, executive leaders, and peers. It could also open new leadership, networking, and speaking opportunities, attract and retain exceptional clients, and inspire the next generation of women entering the accounting profession and the wider financial services industry.

The judging methodology

The Women in Finance Awards, in conjunction with event stakeholders and a panel of leading female finance professionals, has developed a robust awards methodology to assess, analyse, and benchmark Australia’s leading finance professionals.

The judging criteria for award categories are both quantitative and qualitative, acknowledging growth, business development, diversity, leadership, innovation, business excellence and contribution to Australia’s finance sector.

To shortlist finalists, all submissions underwent a thorough audit process, checking demographic and other information against category-eligible criteria based on the information provided in the submission.

A panel of Momentum Media events and editorial team members and executives, plus industry stakeholders where required, reviewed and assessed submissions deemed eligible against the criteria to determine the finalists for each category.

Finalist submissions will now be delivered to a panel of respected professionals and business leaders, who assess each submission against the criteria of each award category.

The judges score each part of the submission against the category’s criteria, then provide an aggregated score. A number of judges will individually assess each submission for each category, offering a blended score and assessment.

The combined judging scores for each submission for each category are tabulated, with the highest-scoring submission deemed the winner.

The winner with the highest score will receive the prestigious Excellence Award.

The winners will be announced at the black-tie gala dinner ceremony on Friday, 13 November 2026 at Hyatt Regency, Sydney. Click here to buy tickets.

To view the full list of finalists, click here.

For more information about the awards program, click here.