Winners of 2022 Minnesota CIO of the Year ORBIE Awards Announced

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InspireCIO Leadership Network

Sep 23, 2022, 12:00 ET

Executives from Land O'Lakes, Medtronic, Best Buy, Mortenson, Cirrus Aircraft, Edmentum, & Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Recognized for their Achievements

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- MinnesotaCIO announced the winners of its 2022 CIO of the Year® ORBIE® Awards. MinnesotaCIO recognized chief information officers in six key categories – Global, Large Enterprise, Enterprise, Large Corporate, Corporate, & Nonprofit/Public Sector. The Awards were presented at the Minnesota CIO ORBIE Awards at Hyatt Regency Minneapolis.

"Every organization is technology-dependent, but strong leadership is the X-factor that can turn mundane IT into a remarkable strategic differentiator," said John Avenson, MinnesotaCIO Chair. "The ORBIE Awards are meaningful because they are judged by peers – CIOs who understand the challenges of technology leadership."

The 2022 Minnesota CIO ORBIE Award winners are:

Teddy Bekele, Chief Technology Officer, Land O'Lakes received the Leadership ORBIE.

Sarah Nieters, VP IT, CIO Americas, Medtronic received the Global ORBIE for organizations over $2 billion annual revenue & multi-national operations.

Brian Tilzer, Chief Digital, Analytics & Technology Officer, Best Buy received the Large Enterprise ORBIE for organizations over $10 billion annual revenue.

Mary Lynne Perushek, CIO, Mortenson received the Enterprise ORBIE for organizations over $1 billion annual revenue.

Michelle Roemer, SVP, IT, Cirrus Aircraft received the Large Corporate ORBIE for organizations over $300 million annual revenue.

Paul Johansen, CTO, Edmentum received the Corporate ORBIE for organizations up to $300 million annual revenue.

Anjali Gandhi, SVP & CIO, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis received the Nonprofit/Public Sector ORBIE for Nonprofit, Healthcare, & Education organizations.

The CIO of the Year ORBIE Awards is the premier technology executive recognition program in the United States. Since inception in 1998, over 500 CIO of the Year winners have received the prestigious ORBIE Award. The ORBIE honors chief information officers who have demonstrated excellence in technology leadership. Finalists and winners are selected by an independent peer review process, led by prior ORBIE recipients, based upon:

Leadership and management effectiveness

Business value created by technology innovation

Engagement in industry and community endeavors

The Minnesota CIO ORBIE Awards keynote was delivered by Teddy Bekele, Chief Technology Officer, Land O'Lakes, who was interviewed by Rick King, Managing Director, Thomson Reuters Corp (ret). Over 400 guests attended, representing leading Minnesota organizations and their technology partners.

The 2022 Minnesota CIO ORBIE Awards was made possible by the following sponsors:

Underwriters: Concord, Lumen, TriCom, & Google Cloud

Gold sponsors: Comcast Business, Fortinet, Turnberry

Silver sponsors: AHEAD, Delphix, FPT Software, FRSecure, Okta, ServiceNow, Tata Consultancy Services, VMWare, Workday, YASH Technologies Inc, Zscaler Inc

Bronze sponsors: Arctic Wolf, Bahwan CyberTek Inc., Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Evolving Solutions, Infosys, PDS, SentinelOne, SHI International, The Nerdery

Media partner: Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal

About MinnesotaCIO

MinnesotaCIO is the preeminent peer leadership network of Minnesota chief information officers. MinnesotaCIO is one of 25 chapters of the InspireCIO Leadership Network, a national membership organization comprised exclusively of CIOs from public and private businesses, government, education, healthcare and nonprofit institutions.

MinnesotaCIO is led by a CIO Advisory Board, supported by an executive director and staff. Underwriter executives ensure programs remain non-commercial and exclusive to qualified CIOs and members.