One of the most rewarding things about being involved with WITI is being able to showcase the extraordinary women talent in our industry. On May 1st, the Chicago WITI Chapter will once again shine the spotlight on women leaders with the fourth WITI “Excellence in Corporate IT Leadership” Award for top Chicago female IT executives. This year’s stellar honorees are:

• Karenann Terrell, CIO of Baxter
• Jennifer Scanlon, CIO of USG
• Jean Holley, CIO of Tellabs
• Connie Shoemake, Vice President, IBM

The nominations for this event were impressive and numerous. Our judges were past winner Noreen Iles, VP of Technology Solutions for Freddie Mac, Brad Spirrison, technology columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and President of Midwest Business., Inc., Mark Cummuta, writer for CIO Magazine and industry consultant, and Lauren DeLong, Executive Director of WITI Gen.

On your bad days when you are wondering if you can climb that corporate ladder, remember that there are trailblazers to look to. Last year’s winners, for example, were:

• Noreen Iles, VP, Technology Solutions, Freddie Mac
• Jan LaHayne, VP, Chief Information Officer, Littelfuse, Inc.
• Susan Malisch, VP, Chief Information Officer, Loyola University
• Barbara A. Zeller, VP, Information Technology Nicor Inc. and Nicor Gas

Past winners include Ellen Barry, Chief Information Officer, Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority; Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology Officer, Motorola; Catherine Brune, Chief Information Officer, Allstate Insurance; Maureen Osborne, former Chief Technology Officer, Bank One; June Drewry, former Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, AON Corporation; and Joy Keeler, Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Chief Information Officer, the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Seeing this now long list of accomplished professionals and speaking as someone with a multi-decade career in IT, I am thrilled to see such tremendous changes. When I started in the 1980’s, I frequently was the only woman in the room. As a matter of fact, I didn’t drink coffee for those early years because any time I got near the coffeepot, everyone expected me to serve them!