Inspiration comes in many forms. Chicago's "Excellence in Corporate IT Leadership" Award sought to recognize a diverse set of inspirational paths and experiences. The organizations under the stewardship of the Awardees had a unique set of challenges. Their companies are from the private and public sectors, and academia. And by showcasing their paths to leadership, it is clear that it is not one path, but many we can learn from.

Noreen Iles was brought in to build a regional IT center. Her company Freddie Mac's home office is located in Virginia, an area with low IT unemployment, resulting in a high number of contractors. The strategic direction was to establish a regional delivery model that will leverage the resources of new labor markets and enhance the ability of Freddie Mac's business information services organization to deliver capabilities to the business areas. Ms. Iles created the first Technology Solution Unit (TSU) in Chicago that serves as a model for other regional offices. As Vice-President of the Freddie Mac TSU, Ms. Iles is a corporate innovator, creating a new organization that is the future one for her company.

Prior to joining Freddie Mac, Ms. Iles had a successful career at Sears, Roebuck and Company. She joined Sears as an entry level programmer after college and worked her way up through the ranks to Vice President. She was involved in the Lands End acquisition, led the team that consolidated all the call centers at Sears, and built and led the organization that created Sears.com. Ms. Iles was considered a critical leader through the Sears merger with Kmart and was responsible for all of the Merchandising and Supply Chain systems. She also had overall responsibility for the enterprise initiative to merge all the Kmart and Sears systems.

Janet J. LaHayne, Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Littelfuse, is a global leader with responsibilty for information systems world wide. This includes 33 locations with manufacturing facilities, sales offices, and R & D centers, and 3 regional customer service centers, one in the Americas, one in Europe, and soon to be, one in Asia. This required building a strong international team in both I.T. and Customer Service with common processes and systems. She installed a common global ERP system and developed the I.T. and Customer Service strategy that allowed Littelfuse to successfully grow from a 260 million dollar company in 2001 to a 600 million dollar company today. This included integrating 8 different acquired companies in 6 years.

Ms. LaHayne joined the company in 1999. Prior to joining Littelfuse, Ms. LaHayne was Director of Information Services at World's Finest Chocolate from 1997 to 1999. Before that, Ms. LaHayne spent 13 years with The Quaker Oats Company where she held positions managing the information systems in supply chain, various food and beverage divisions, and in Finance.

Imagine multiple, sprawling urban campuses filled with tech-savvy students and demanding staff, and you begin to understand Susan Malisch's challenges. Adding to that, the CIO position had been vacant or filled on an interim basis for a period of time prior to Ms. Malisch's arrival. As a result, Ms. Malisch filled a dire need for technology leadership on campus. As VP and CIO of Loyola University, she is the senior administrator responsible for providing overall management and leadership of all technology-related services across a broad constituency. This includes providing computer network and telecommunications service to each and every office and residence hall on campus; systems implementation and development, maintenance, and operations support for the school's administrative and academic systems; teaching and learning technology support to faculty and students; and technology training and development services to Loyola's students, staff, and faculty.

Ms. Malisch earned her CIO stripes from 2001 to 2003 at Novell as the Regional CIO of the Americas. This was after working in a variety of leadership roles in the organization starting in 1997. She gained her understanding of the academic environment as an IT manager at UCLA. Her career started with Southwestern Bell Communications and NSC Systems Group after her graduation for Rockhurst University in Missouri.

As Vice President Information Technology for Nicor Inc. and Nicor Gas, Barbara Zeller is responsible for corporate information services function in a $2B natural gas local distribution company. As member of officer team, she participates in corporate strategy and planning, Chairs the Capital Management Team responsible for annual corporate investments, and serves on corporate committees including Information Technology Steering, Public Action Committee, and Management Planning.

Many may assume that a utility company does not experience turbulent change. That is not the case for Nicor and Ms. Zeller. During her tenure she initiated an IS transformation program spanning four years that impacted organizational design, employee skills, cross-functional team delivery and a corporate culture shift to position IS for utility deregulation. She implemented the largest capital investment in information technology as the leader of a multi-million dollar Customer Care and Field Management project and transitioned corporate business systems from mainframe platform to open systems.

Ms. Zeller has over 30 years of experience in information technology including positions in the manufacturing and distribution industries as well as consulting assignments. Her IT career path included leadership roles in top Chicago corporations such as Sara Lee Bakery, United Stationers and Alberto-Culver, before moving to corporate giant IBM's Global Services organization. Ms. Zeller earned a bachelor's degree from Roosevelt University and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago.

The 2006 Award winners are true change agents. They demonstrated a commitment to excellence and building the next generation of leaders (see "Mentorship in Action' article). They are builders. Ms. Iles built a new regional model for Freddie Mac, and Ms. LaHayne built a global one for Littelfuse. They step in where leadership is needed, as Ms. Malisch did at Loyola. They create tremendous changes, as Ms. Zeller did at Nicor. A key lesson from their stories is that there isn't any one way to the top, and that the top is different in different organizations. The diverse experiences of these corporate executives points to the need for flexibility and leadership in IT, and the considerable opportunities within it.