Celebrating Excellence: Meet the Winners of the First-Ever Scrum Alliance Awards

Scrum Alliance is thrilled to launch a new awards program to recognize outstanding members of the community: folks who are making a difference and evolving agile practices for the modern day. 

The inaugural edition of these awards recognizes four members from among Scrum Alliance-certified trainers and coaches. They have demonstrated excellence, leadership, and service in advancing agile skills and knowledge all over the world.

Each winner was nominated by peers who know the value of authentic, impactful work in the field. We're pleased to recognize these four individuals across four distinct categories.

Rising Star

This award is given to a trainer or coach within their first three years of service to agility to recognize exceptional performance and potential. 

Winner: Jason Cathcart

About this recognition, Jason said:

"Winning the Scrum Alliance Rising Star Award means the world to me. This recognition not only validates my efforts but also inspires me to contribute even more to the agile community, fostering collaboration and growth. It represents a major milestone in my career, encouraging me to drive positive change in our community. Winning this award is the pinnacle of the support and encouragement I've received from so many people on my journey. Thank you!"

Jason Cathcart empowers teams to adapt, innovate, and thrive in dynamic environments. He's been an agile coach at Optus since June 2019. Before that, he spent over a decade at Virgin Mobile Australia as a scrum master and project manager. 

Agile Impact

Along with other factors such as student satisfaction and overall contribution to learning, this award is given to a trainer who has demonstrated exceptional achievement in delivering agile and scrum education and who has made a significant impact through the number of students they have recommended for Scrum Alliance credentials.

Winner: Madhavi Ledalla

Madhavi said:

"Receiving the Inaugural Agile Impact Award is a profound honor and a heartfelt validation of my journey with the agile community. It reflects the collective energy of my learners, partners, and collaborators who have supported and trusted me along the way. I remain committed to fostering inclusive, human-centered agile spaces that inspire meaningful change—thank you everyone and Scrum Alliance."

Madhavi is an agile coach with a technology background and end-to-end development experience with MS Technologies. Her passion for agile has led her to lead large-scale agile transformations through training and coaching teams. As an agile coach, Madhavi brings the perspectives of both traditional and agile methodologies, and she works with leadership and teams to guide them through transformation. 

Volunteer of the Year

This award is granted to an agile professional who has demonstrated exceptional agile community service and who has dedicated their time and energy as an ambassador of Scrum Alliance.

Winner: Elena Aminova

Here's what Elena had to say about the recognition:

"Receiving the Volunteer of the Year Award is a tremendous honor and a reflection of the power of community. Through organizing Agile Coaching Retreats and conferences, I've been privileged to create spaces where practitioners come together to learn, grow, and spark meaningful change. Scrum Alliance's position—'agile for anyone means agile for you'—beautifully captures the spirit of this work, and I'm proud to help make agility more accessible, personal, and impactful for all."

Elena holds an MBA in Technology Management and is a Scrum Alliance Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC), Certified Team Coach (CTC), and an Organizational System Relationship Coach (ORSC), and has been practicing scrum since 2011. She is an expert at enabling the adoption of agile values and principles, gaining trust, building relationships, and fostering self-organization within the teams she leads. Elena enjoys organizing agile conferences, Agile Coaching Retreats, and local meetups.

Agile Achievement

This award goes to an individual who is recognized as a community builder, a dedicated mentor, and a respected leader within the scrum and agile community. 

Winner: Rowan Bunning

Rowan is an Australian pioneer of scrum, having become Australia's first recognized ScrumMaster in 2003 and Certified Scrum Trainer® (CST®) in early 2008. With a background in software development, including eXtreme Programming, he was hired as an Agile Coach by one of Europe's foremost agile consultancies in 2007. Since then, Rowan has guided organizations ranging from banks to video game companies through accelerated agile adoptions.

A community built on impact

These four award recipients represent the spirit of Scrum Alliance: passionate, generous, and committed to a better way of working. We thank them and all the nominees for their contributions to our vibrant global community.

Stay tuned for more stories of agile excellence throughout the year.