Since 1998, the CIO ORBIE Awards have recognized technology executives for leadership, innovation and excellence in this rapidly growing, CIO-led national professional association. The Michigan CIO of the Year® ORBIE® Awards honors chief information officers who have demonstrated excellence in technology leadership. CIOs are typically recognized in multiple categories, based on the size and scope of their organization and responsibilities.

"The MichiganCIO ORBIE winners demonstrate the value great leadership creates. Especially in these uncertain times, CIOs are leading in unprecedented ways and enabling the largest work-from-home experiment in history," according to Jen Wise, executive director of MichiganCIO. "The ORBIE Awards are meaningful because they are judged by peers-CIOs who understand how difficult this job is and why great leadership matters."

U-M's own Ravi Pendse, vice president for information technology and chief information officer, won in the nonprofit/public sector category in 2020 and was nominated for the national award in 2021.

We're proud that in 2021 our own CIO, Cathleen Curley, was a finalist in the Enterprise category (up to $1B in annual revenue). 

Curley writes, "Our greatest accomplishment was enabling the shift from a residential campus experience to remote and hybrid teaching, learning and research. We expanded lecture capture and video streaming services to 260+ classrooms to support 4,000+ classes taken by 20,000+ students. We provided new software, training, templates, and assessment alternatives for 3,300+ faculty, lecturer’s and graduate instructors. We developed applications to manage return to campus planning; student roll call, research lab restart, course guide changes, self-service study space reservation system, virtual orientation, online chat, virtual appointments and virtual commencement."

Michigan IT had three other finalists in 2021:

• Carrie Shumaker (UM-Dearborn) was a finalist in the Corporate category (up to $300M in annual revenue). Carrie is responsible for leading and managing a team of 30 ITS professionals as well as leading the development, implementation and administration of comprehensive IT strategies, policies and procedures that support the university mission and goals.

• Andrew Rosenberg (Michigan Medicine) won in the Healthcare category. Dr. Rosenberg guides the strategic planning and operations of technology and information services across the University of Michigan Health System and Medical School.

• Daniel Waltz (MidMichigan Health) was a finalist in the Healthcare category. Dan has extensive health care administrative and information technology experience. He joined MidMichigan Health in January 2014 after 13 years at Michigan Medicine where he was an Executive Director of hospital information technology and Program Director for the electronic medical record transformation.

Congratulations to all four nominees and winner Andrew Rosenberg!