The Pittsburgh Technology Council and the Pittsburgh CIO Group announced the winners of their annual CIO of the Year Awards, which aim to recognize CIOs for innovation, goals, management and service to the industry.
This content is reprinted from a Pittsburgh Business Times digital magazine article written by Julia Mericle and published on July 15, 2020. Read the full article here.
“Honoring the accomplishments and contributions of these often unsung heroes of business is a priority for the tech council,” PTC President and CEO Audrey Russo said in a prepared statement. “We have extraordinary talent in our region, and the CIO of the Year Awards is the perfect setting to recognizing this talent and have cause for a true celebration.”
The PTC hosted this year’s event virtually.
Chris Kowalski took the CIO Choice Award, which recognized his long career in IT. His roles included serving as a developer at IBM, head of IT at several major hospitals, CIO of EDMC, Head of IT at CORE and adjunct professor of IT management at Carnegie Mellon University.
John Cassidy, chief technology and operations officer at Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh, won the government/nonprofit category. Finalists for this category were Ryan Conover, director of information services at Oncology Nursing Society; Jeffrey Devlin, CIO at Port Authority of Allegheny County; Greg Dumont, CIO at Carlow University; Katherine Karolick, senior vice president of IT at Allegheny County Airport Authority; and Richard Wilkie, CIO at SAE.
Jason James, CIO of Net Health, won the CIO MegaByte category for companies with 50 to 550 employees. Finalists for this category were Mangal Anandan, vice president of products and solutions at First Insight Inc.; Ron Baxter, director of technology at J.V. Manufacturing; Dena Ghilani, CIO at SESCO Enterprises; Cindy Lesker, chairman of the board and CIO at Kurt J. Lesker Co.; and Richard Mackey, senior vice president of technology and products at Intalere.