As Microsoft New Zealand’s Country Leader, Vanessa Sorenson is a passionate advocate for Aotearoa, committed to empowering customers and partners across the country to achieve more. She leads local strategy and engagement, ensuring Microsoft NZ delivers meaningful impact through technology, education, and community initiatives. Vanessa is known for her dedication to diversity and inclusion, mentoring women in business, and championing equal access to technology – especially for children and girls in STEM.

In her broader role as Enterprise Partner Solutions Director for Australia and New Zealand, Vanessa drives growth across Microsoft’s partner ecosystem by building technical, commercial, and go-to-market capabilities. Her team works closely with partners to deliver innovation across Microsoft’s cloud platforms and enable digital transformation for customers. Vanessa joined Microsoft in 2017 after more than two decades at Spark, New Zealand’s largest telco, and has since led enterprise sales, partner engagement, and strategic growth initiatives across the region. Though deeply experienced in tech, she sees herself not as a “classic techie,” but as someone driven by what technology can do for people.