Patrick Naef awarded CIO of the Year following his recent announcement as CIO of the Decade Award.

DUBAI, UAE - 15 December 2011 - Divisional Senior Vice President IT for the Emirates Group and Head of Mercator, Patrick Naef, has been named 'Chief Information Officer of the Year' in the international category by leading German-based publication, Computerwoche.

Presented amongst the international IT community, including many of the world's leading CIOs, in a ceremony held recently in Germany, Patrick received first prize in the category "Global Exchange Award" for the best international IT project and the title "CIO of the Year." Both Patrick and the Head of Emirates Group Finance, Michael Doersam, who sponsored the project, accepted the award.

As Head of IT for The Emirates Group, Patrick is responsible for the team providing business technology solutions and systems which support the daily global operations and future growth plans of the Group. Comprising Emirates airline, dnata and more than 50 Group subsidiaries operating across the international aviation, travel, tourism and leisure industries, the Emirates Group is an international conglomerate employing more than 57,000 people and generating annual revenues in excess of US$15.6 billion.

The CIO of the Year award acknowledges outstanding large-scale cross-border IT projects. Amongst a long list of criterion, the project must signal multi-cultural teams working across international boundaries towards the attainment of project success. The CIO of the Year award follows Patrick's recent win as 'CIO of the Decade' by Europe's leading IT magazine, CIO. Also winning in the category of international orientation, Patrick was identified as being among the world's best CIOs by a jury of 70 experts from leading academics and industry practitioners.

Spearheaded by Patrick and his team, IT worked closely with the Emirates team of finance professionals to collaborate on the development of a new financial accounting system for Group Finance. The project involved 75 offices in 62 countries across six continents with a project team of more than 100 employees.

"This award acknowledges the organizational benefits of successful cross-departmental cooperation and alignment. Together, Finance and IT designed a new system for the management of finance world-wide. The technology has already paid dividends to the Group, enabling it to be more responsive and to achieve cost savings via increased process efficiencies" said Patrick Naef.

"The project, which the CIO of the Year award is based on, is a good example of how IT can work closely with other departments to create innovative solutions towards increasing the profits and reducing the costs of an organisation."

L-R: Heinrich Vaske, Chief Editor COMPUTERWOCHE; Patrick Naef, Head of Emirates Group IT; Michael Doersam, Head of Emirates Group Finance; Horst Ellermann, Chief Editor CIO Magazine.

Top