Winners of 2021 HoustonCIO ORBIE Awards Announced

USA - English

Executives from CenterPoint Energy, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Tokio Marine HCC, NRG Energy, Hines, Stallion Oilfield Services, and Rice University Recognized for their Achievements

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HoustonCIO

Apr 09, 2021, 11:00 ET

HOUSTON, April 9, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- HoustonCIO announced the winners of its 2021 CIO of the Year® ORBIE® Awards. HoustonCIO recognized chief information officers in seven key categories – Leadership, Super Global, Global, Large Enterprise, Enterprise, Corporate, and Nonprofit/Public Sector. The HoustonCIO ORBIE Awards were presented virtually.

"The HoustonCIO ORBIE winners demonstrate the significance of strong technology leadership in these uncertain times. Over the past year, CIOs are leading in unprecedented ways and enabling the largest work-from-home experiment in history," according to Monique Cook, Executive Director of HoustonCIO. "The ORBIE Awards are meaningful because they are judged by peers - CIOs who understand how difficult this job is and why great leadership matters."

The 2021 HoustonCIO ORBIE Award winners are:

Shachella James, VP of IT, CenterPoint Energy received the Leadership CIO of the Year ORBIE.
Rashmi Kumar, SVP & CIO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise received the Super Global ORBIE for organizations over $9 billion annual revenue & multi-national operations.
Brad Breau, SVP & CIO, Tokio Marine HCC received the Global ORBIE for organizations up to $1 billion annual revenue & multi-national operations.
Kim Hales, SVP IT, NRG Energy received the Large Enterprise ORBIE for organizations over $2 billion annual revenue.
Jesse Carrillo, SVP & CIO, Hines received the Enterprise ORBIE for organizations over $750 million annual revenue.
Jason Lu, VP & CIO, Stallion Oilfield Services received the Corporate ORBIE for organizations up to $750 million annual revenue.
Klara Jelinkova, CIO & VP of International Operations, Rice University received the Nonprofit/Public Sector ORBIE for government, education, and other nonprofit organizations.

The CIO of the Year ORBIE Awards is the premier technology executive recognition program in the United States. Since inception in 1998, over 1,500 CIOs have been honored as finalists and over 350 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 HoustonCIO ORBIE Awards keynote was delivered by Ric Campo, CEO of Camden Property Trust. Over 300 guests attended virtually, representing leading Colorado organizations and their technology partners.

The 2021 HoustonCIO ORBIE Awards was made possible by the following sponsors:

Underwriters: Pariveda, Lumen, BlueSky IT Partners, Athenian Consulting Group, & Cigniti
Gold sponsors: Utegration, Fortinet, SHI, Smartbridge, Google, & Mphasis
Silver sponsors: Workday, ServiceNow, Netsync/Cisco, Snowflake, Pure Storage, Zoom, Accenture, & Tata Consultancy Services
Bronze sponsors: Blackberry, Liquid Frameworks, Delphix, Protiviti, PSIOG Digital, TIBCO, PwC, RSM, Infosys, Perficient & Between Pixels
Media partner: Houston Business Journal
About HoustonCIO

HoustonCIO is the preeminent peer leadership network of Houston chief information officers. HoustonCIO is one of 21 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.

HoustonCIO 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.