The recruiter who turns potential into “Unstoppable” careers
For Zuli Posada, winner of Best Employee, recruiting has never been about filling roles. It has always been about unlocking possibility, especially for women in STEM.
Her passion started in Colombia, in the middle of political tension and uncertainty. While working on a presidential campaign, Zuli led initiatives to empower women, organising events that sparked dialogue and mobilised change across the country.
It was noisy, intense and often unsafe, yet it showed her how powerful women’s voices could be when they were given the microphone.
Later, in the corporate world at IBM, she saw another pattern. Brilliant women were applying for roles in tech, yet something in the system – and often in their own self belief – was holding them back. As a recruiter designing workshops to attract women into technology, she discovered her purpose.
“I don’t see recruiting as a numbers game. I see it as the power to connect women to work they truly love and design career paths that honour their talents, while advocating for gender equity.”
Over more than a decade, across South America and the Asia Pacific, Zuli has been quietly redesigning what equitable recruitment looks like.
At IBM she led programs like FEMME in STEMM and Design Thinking for Gals across Latin America and Australia. These initiatives built a diverse pipeline of women into tech internships across three continents, often achieving balanced cohorts of around 35 percent women in regions where that was far from the norm. The work was recognised with IBM’s Eminence Award in 2014.
Today, as a Senior Early Careers Recruiter at Atlassian, she has taken that impact even further. In 2020 Zuli launched Unstoppable You, a coaching psychology based program co created with Atlassian researchers and informed by student insights. Designed for female STEM students, it helps them name and overcome impostor phenomenon and navigate male dominated spaces with confidence.
Since launch, Unstoppable You has supported more than 1,000 young women across APAC and India. The outcomes are striking. Atlassian’s gender representation in early career technical roles has grown from 25 percent to 50 percent, with similar gains across broader APAC hiring. The program received the Will Spensley Memorial Award for Innovation from the Australian Association of Graduate Employers in 2023 and is now embedded in Atlassian’s broader DEI strategy.
Unstoppable You is also being shared externally, including with other organisations and through collaboration with Employee Resource Groups at Google and Canva to support Latina women in tech. For Zuli, that cross company spirit matters.
“This work is only real when it outlives a single role or organisation. The goal is a replicable model anyone can use to lift women up.”
Her own journey – changing careers three times, learning a second language, working across 30 plus countries, migrating to Australia and facing impostor syndrome firsthand – fuels her commitment. In 2024, she was honoured by the Colombian Consulate in NSW and QLD for supporting Latino women to thrive professionally in Australia. She has also been named one of Australia’s Top Graduate Recruiters three years running, and was a 2025 Women Leading Tech Awards winner for championing inclusive hiring.
Zuli’s recognition at the Gender Equity Awards honours more than a high performer. It celebrates a builder of sustainable, scalable frameworks that change how organisations think about talent, and how women think about themselves.