Tech CxO Excellence Certificate

Inducted in 2023 to the Tech Titans Hall of Fame. Winner of Inspire CIO’s 2021 Dallas / North Texas Global ORBIE CIO of the Year. Winner of SEI’s 2020 Women in IT - Luminary Award. These are just a few of the awards and a highlight of the recognition that Trude Van Horn has received in her decades-long career as a veteran global IT executive.
Trude is most proud of tremendous contributions to corporate IT transformation activities, impactful technology cost savings and cost avoidance accomplishments, elevating corporate culture, developing high performance teams, empowering women in the workplace and developing the next generation of IT leaders.
Trude is the current EVP/Global CIO at Rimini Street. Previously, she spent a decade in chemicals and global manufacturing as CIO at NCH Corporation, along with a diverse career in other industries. She spent a significant portion of her IT career in retail for Victoria’s Secret, Office Depot, Jo-Ann Stores, and Haggar Clothing Company. She credits much of her professional success to the strong leadership foundation she built early in her career while working at industry giants, American Express and JPMorgan.

Trude is a favorite speaker and moderator at technology forums. Along with a group of peer executives, she has built curriculum for the SMU Tech CxO Leadership Certificate program. She is highly engaged in organizations that provide technology executives the opportunity for development, candid discussion, access to technology innovation and future trends in tech. Trude participates on many advisory boards such as DallasCIO (former Chair), Evanta, SIM, the DFW Alliance of Technology and Women (DFW ATW), Technology Ball, and is an investor in Prime Women Media. She is a member of the Dallas Innovation Advisory Council of Vation Ventures. She is a Board Member of Tech Genies, a software development and staffing partner with resources across the globe. She is a proud member of IWF, an invitation-only network of the most accomplished women in the world.

Trude challenges and empowers leaders, feels an obligation to invest in encouraging, mentoring and developing the next generation of technology executives, and is passionate about encouraging more women to lead in technology careers.

Born and raised outside of Philadelphia, Trude is a graduate of Temple University and currently resides in Irving, Texas, with her husband. She loves golf, books, pets, travel, and time with family and friends.

Kris has over 44 years of progressive experience in the IT sector in various industries spanning technology, including EFT, telecom, health care, staffing, loyalty, manufacturing, professional services, retail, banking, public sector and higher education.

As the former Chief Technology Officer for NTT DATA Inc., Kris led NTT DATA’s R&D and innovation programs, leveraging NTT Group R&D and related investments to deliver client impact. This included strategy development, innovation and solutions for large healthcare payer, private university, oldest bank in the Americas, global manufacturer, global professional services firm, global staffing company, large bottler and others.

Kris has held numerous executive delivery roles throughout his career allowing him to provide unique perspective to dynamic client environments including CDO Manpower, Head of eBusiness Alliance Data, CDO Office Max, CIO Octel, SVP of Product Management for large Point of Sale company.

Additionally, Kris is Chairman of the Executive Council for the UTD Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, member of the Computer Science Advisory board, and a guest lecturer with topics including AI for Healthcare, Innovation, Strategy, Tech Trends and Business Impact, Leading Global Teams.
Kris is also an advisor to several start-up companies in the Global Staffing, AI and ML Ops, and AI powered HC markets. Kris also builds houses for Habitat for Humanity.

Kris takes great pride and enjoyment in helping senior IT and business executives realize the promise of todays and tomorrow’s technology to achieve their business and personal goals.

Trey Smith is a passionate IT leader, having held CTO and CIO positions in an over 20 year career. Throughout his life, Trey has been lucky enough to work with just about every aspect of technology: burning holes in Mom’s carpet while soldering robots together, writing software, architecting networks, building a giant Tesla coil, and gaining patents for Voice over IP technology. Once a nerd, always a nerd! Trey’s most recent Enterprise role was to lead teams to provide IT to four very different companies, all at the same time at over 100 locations: an aviation company that fills fuel into private jets all around the country, a tank terminal company that stores everything from vegetable oil to marine fuel, the natural gas utility for the state of Hawaii, and a wind/solar conglomerate. Trey is typically responsible for Information Security, Computing, Networking, Software Development, Service Desk, and IT Field Operations. But building and leading great teams and helping people are what motivates Trey the most!

Nayan Patel is a Managing Director at Avis Advisors with expertise in IT strategy, governance, M&A, and service management operations. He has held executive leadership roles at Neudesic (an IBM Company), Baptist Health, Valley Baptist Medical Center, The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano, and Baylor Scott & White Health supporting physician, nursing and community leaders.

As a senior tech executive, Nayan is passionate about leveraging a transparent leadership style that advocates the use of technology to improve the health of humans.
He has 25+ years of experience in the IT industry leading successful large-scale projects, change management and IT Operations through COVID. Nayan is a pragmatic thinker with an appetite for improving the end user experience while delivering high quality service to clinical, business, and technology operations. He has led multiple enterprise initiatives, modernized IT infrastructure, completed M&A of two hospitals, implemented EHRs (electronic health records), established ITIL processes for enhanced IT incident response, app availability, and customer service and developed a cloud migration strategy for a business continuity and disaster recovery process.

Nayan is a proud faculty member of CHIME University, and routinely mentors early careerists through ACHE, CHIME, HIMSS and other national Health IT associations. A firm believer in giving back to the community, he is a board member of the Southern Methodist University (SMU) IT Operations Management (ITOM) Advisory Board, Medtronic Hospital IT Advisory Board, the University of Texas-Dallas Healthcare Management Advisory Council, and Dallas Fort Worth HIMSS.

Neelu Sethi is the SVP & Global Chief Information Officer of Brinks Inc, a leading global provider of cash and valuables management, digital retail solutions, and ATM managed services serving customers in 100+ Countries along with ~72K Employees across ~1300 Facilities.

With reputation of a proven servant leader, Neelu has ~30 years of experience in CPG, Hospitality, Healthcare and Textile industries. She is known for delivering business results by engaging people. She has been recognized as 2023 CIO of the year Orbie Award winner, 2022 CIO Of the Year Tech Titan Award winner, Top 15 Business Women in Dallas, 2019 Women In Technology award honoree by Dallas Business Journal, 2018 Stevie Gold Digital Transformer of the Year winner of American Business Awards, 2018 CGT’s IT Excellence Award winner, 2018 Dallas Power 50 Awardee, 2019 & 2020, Orbie CIO Finalist and 2020 Tech Titans CIO Finalist. As a business technologist, Neelu offers a unique blend of executive acumen, global team-enablement and driving transformation through innovative, problem solving and value creation culture.

Prior to joining Brinks, Neelu held various executive positions with Reddy Ice, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Cadbury Schweppes, ClubCorp and McKesson. She has successfully led IT Operations across Corporate, Commercial and Supply Chain functions including Logistics, Manufacturing, Warehousing, Engineering, Procurement, Consumer Relations, Facilities and Environmental Health & Safety. Her achievements extend across numerous disciplines including strategy, driving innovation, digital transformation, delivering complex system implementations and enterprise-wide IT operations including Mergers & Acquisitions.

Neelu holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Applications from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), India and a Master’s degree in Mathematics from Delhi University, India. She is an active participant of the CIO Technology Executive Network, National Diversity & Inclusion Forums, Women Leadership Groups and serves as a board member of several non-profit organizations. She lives in Dallas with her husband and their son.

Michael Youngs is the Vice President of Information Technology Systems at Dallas Ft Worth International Airport (DFW.) In this capacity, he provides business and customer-focused technology leadership for the continued development of an innovative, robust, and secure technology program supporting the complex business and operational needs of DFW International Airport. The primary responsibilities include support for application delivery and development, IT infrastructure and services, information security and compliance, enterprise systems, and client support services.

Youngs represents DFW’s information technology interests by participating in industry associations such as the American Association of Aviation Executives and Airport Council International as a member of the Business and Information Technology Working Group. Mr. Youngs also participates locally in the “Technology Ball” helping to raise funds for STEM education while providing networking opportunities for leaders in the DFW Information Technology Community.
Prior to joining DFW, Youngs spent 25 years in information technology roles. Most recently as the Deputy Director for Technology at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Mr. Youngs holds a master’s degree in Geographic Information Systems from Michigan State University.

Dr. Julius Smith serves and leads as the Vice President and Chief Information Officer for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). In this role, he oversees DART's technology systems and technical strategic direction. He identifies opportunities to support the Agency’s expansive transit network by applying innovation, cybersecurity, digital technology, data science and governance, automation, and enhancing employee and customer experiences. He has led several technology initiatives at DART promoting transit reliability, safety and security. Before joining DART, he held leadership roles in the Department of Defense. Dr. Smith also served in the prestigious Chief Information Security Officer position in
his professional journey.

He is on the SMU Cybersecurity Advisory Board and the Tech CxO Excellence Certificate Program Advisory Board, where he is helping to build the next generation of C-level tech Executives.

Dr. Smith earned his doctorate from Regent University School of Business and obtained security and technology certifications throughout his career. Dr. Smith and DART are the 2023 IBM Reliability MaximoWorld Best Implementation Award recipients. He is a 2024 North Texas Orbie Award Dallas CIO of the Year (Large Corporate) awardee and a 2024 Information Technology Senior Management Forum Technology National Executive of the Year (Nonprofit/Public Sector) winner.

Dr. Smith is the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Chair for the Enterprise Cyber Security Working Group (ECSWG) and serves on the CIO Transit Consortium's Board leadership. He is a member of the Leadership APTA 2024 Program Cohort. He is an appointed State of Texas Cyber Security Council member, a member of the DallasCIO Advisory Board, and the Dallas CISO Governing Body. Additionally, he is a board member of One Man’s Treasure,
a Dallas-Fort Worth non-profit organization.