“I have always wanted to be a CIO,” Ursula Soritsch-Reiner, the newest mentor for Columbia University’s Executive Master of Science in Technology Management program, told HCL Tech’s Straight Talk recently. “That may be hard for the typical business executive to understand. After all, IT is a difficult area. When the lights are on, no one pats you on the back.”
For her, technology can be harnessed as something that works for the company and its consumers. For the engineering and manufacturing firm Sulzer, where she is CIO, it has involved creating an IT structure that works with the company’s needs and accommodates its shift from a conglomerate to a market-oriented global operations.
Soritsch-Reiner received a Master’s Degree in Philosophy, with a minor in Computer Science from the University of Vienna and a Diploma from the WIFI College for Economics. After a decade at Royal Philips Electronics, she worked as the Global Head for IT Strategy, Sourcing, Project Management, and Enterprise Architecture at Novartis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before being named CIO at Sulzer. In 2014, she was named the Swiss CIO of the year.
Soritsch-Reiner will bring her years of experience and her philosophy to her mentor role, in which she will help students understand how technology can be best utilized for both companies and users.
Read more about Soritsch-Reiner on “The Excitement of Leading Transformative Change” and learn more about the Technology Management master’s program.
