TechBridge congratulates Executive Ambassadors and 2019 Georgia CIO of the Year ORBIE Award winners Laura Miller of IHG and Shirl Stroeing (pictured above) of Paradies Lagardére in the Super Global and Global categories, respectively.

Laura Miller thanked the room of CIOs and tech colleagues and shared that her parents were in the audience. Laura said she grew up never knowing there was a glass ceiling for women. Her parents were great role models and her father, too, was a CIO. Along with her husband and her teams, she thanked her mentors (among them Bill VanCuren and Lee Crump).

Surrounded by the talented Paradies Lagardére leadership and their IT team, Shirl Stroeing said that now is such a fun time to be a CIO. Technology is absolutely at the core of everything companies do to service our customers. Beyond that, this community of CIOs are an amazing group of people who come together to share ideas and innovations, and even more than that, the time and the talent that you all give to the charitable organizations that we are part of in Greater Atlanta, that has been an inspiration to me both personally and professionally.

Georgia CIO of the Year Finalists included Karen Bird of Hooters of America, Alan Fralick of CRH Americas Materials, Trey Keisler of GE Power, Christopher Lindne of Manhattan Associates, Michael Muncy of Aveanna Healthcare, and Darrell Riekena of RNDC.

For his lifetime achievement, Ed Steinike (who passed away in 2016) was remembered by Sallie Graves of MagMutual, Aaron Gwinner of Reynolds American, and Vish Narendra of Graphic Packaging International. To demonstrate the value of camaraderie, GeorgiaCIO found a talented group of would-be actors in Lee Crump of Rollins, Marie Mouchet of Colonial Pipeline, Serena Sacks of Fulton County Schools, John Trainor of Aaron’s, and Bill VanCuren of NCR.