Innovation Awards Committee

How do you find a hero?

Every year, Informatica executives, with the help of industry experts and partners, seek out industry innovators.

The awards committee studies hundreds of stories to select the finalists. You can get a brief taste of the winners and finalists on this website right now.

Awards Committee

Special thanks to the awards committee

Michael Friedenberg
CEO & President
CXO Media, Inc. Publisher of CIO Magazine

Mark Smith
CEO & Executive Vice President of Research
Ventana Research

Paul J. Hoffman
Executive Vice President, Worldwide Field Operations
Informatica

Earl E. Fry
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Informatica

James Markarian
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Informatica

Girish Pancha
Executive Vice President and General Manager, Data Integration
Informatica

Ivan Chong
Senior Vice President and General Manager, Data Quality
Informatica

Dr. Chris Boorman
Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer
Informatica

Tony Young
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Informatica

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CEO & President
CXO Media Inc., Publisher of CIO Magazine
Michael Friedenberg is CEO and president of CXO Media Inc., an IDG company that develops strategic media properties and executive programs for corporate officers who use technology to thrive and prosper in this new era of business.  Appointed by IDG Communications President Bob Carrigan in July 2005, Friedenberg oversees CXO Media’s award-winning CIO (chief information officer) and CSO (chief security officer) brands, products and services and leads the company’s 125+ employees in various offices throughout the United States, including California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

With more than 15 years in the information technology (IT) media industry, Friedenberg is widely regarded as a dynamic marketer who keenly understands the IT industry’s evolving needs.  This past year, Friedenberg was named to BtoB magazine’s “Who’s Who” in business media.  Friedenberg previously served as senior vice president, CMP Strategic Customer Development responsible for sales and marketing strategies to increase revenue from the company’s top 50 customers worldwide.  During his tenure with CMP Media, he advanced from sales management positions to vice president and publisher of InformationWeek, and later vice president and group publisher of the InformationWeek Media Network and co-founder of Optimize magazine.  As VP/group publisher, Friedenberg set the vision, strategy, and positioning of multiple brands across print, online, events, and research services.  Friedenberg’s career also includes work with Cardinal Business Media and vertical publications at HP Professional, Midrange Systems, and DEC Professional.

Outside the walls of CXO Media, Friedenberg is a source for other media outlets on issues of media and marketing.  He is widely regarded as an expert and regularly quoted about the media industry by publications including BtoB magazine, The Write News, and Folio magazine.  He is also a frequent guest speaker at many industry conferences as well as user events for companies such as IBM, Oracle, Informatica, and Peregrine.
Friedenberg graduated with a B.S. in business administration from the University of Delaware.  He is an avid sports fan who closely follows and enjoys Major League Baseball among many other sporting events on the national and international scenes.

Mark Smith
CEO & Executive Vice President of Research
Ventana Research
Mark is responsible for the overall direction of Ventana Research and drives the global Performance Management research agenda covering both business and technology areas. He defined the blueprint for Performance Management as the linking together of people, processes, information and technology across organizations to drive effective results. Mark is an expert in Performance Management, Business Intelligence and Information Management across finance, operations and IT. As an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience, Mark worked at companies including SAP, META Group, Oracle and IRI Software before founding Ventana Research.  He has experience in banking, consumer products, food and beverage, insurance, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and retail and consumer services.

Paul J. Hoffman
Executive Vice President, Worldwide Field Operations
Informatica
Reporting to Informatica president and CEO Sohaib Abbasi, Mr. Hoffman leads Informatica's sales, alliances, professional services and education services organization across the Americas, EMEA, Asia-Pacific and Japan. With a 30-year track record of leading high-growth sales organizations, Mr. Hoffman joined Informatica from Cassatt Corporation, an infrastructure software company, where he served as the executive vice president of worldwide sales. Prior to Cassatt, Mr. Hoffman was president of the Americas sales and field operations organization at SeeBeyond Technology Corporation. He previously served as vice president of worldwide sales at Documentum, the global leader in document and content management solutions, helping grow the company's revenues by nearly 300 percent. Mr. Hoffman also spent 10 years at Oracle Corporation in senior sales management and executive-level positions, including the vice president of worldwide operations. Mr. Hoffman holds a B.S. in finance from Fairfield University.

Earl E. Fry
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Informatica
A financial management veteran who has led the financial growth of successful public and private technology companies, Mr. Fry joined Informatica in January 2000 and reports directly to Informatica CEO Sohaib Abbasi.  Prior to joining Informatica, Mr. Fry served for four years as vice president and chief financial officer at Omnicell.com, a provider of supply chain management solutions to the healthcare industry. He previously held the position of vice president, CFO, and treasurer at C-ATS Software, a provider of risk-management products for global financial institutions, and CFO at Weitek Corporation, a semiconductor company. Mr. Fry began his career in public accounting with Ernst & Young. He received an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.B.A. in accounting from the University of Hawaii.

James Markarian
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Informatica
Mr. Markarian serves as senior vice president and chief technology officer of Informatica with responsibility for the strategic direction of Informatica's products. Mr. Markarian joined Informatica in 1998 from Oracle where he served for ten years in a number of roles. Prior to joining Informatica, Mr. Markarian was architect of the Oracle Tools Division, where he held responsibility for cross-product architectural planning and integration decisions. He also served on Oracle's Architecture Review Board. Mr. Markarian earned a B.A. in computer science and economics and an M.A. in economics from Boston University.

Girish Pancha
Executive Vice President and General Manager, Data Integration
Informatica
Girish Pancha is General Manager for Informatica's Data Integration Business Unit. An early employee of Informatica, in 2000, Mr. Pancha rejoined the company as executive vice president of products to oversee the direction of Informatica's award-winning enterprise data integration platform. Mr. Pancha has focused on developing innovative products that address the challenges of data integration as a mission-critical, enterprise-wide solution. Prior to assuming this role at Informatica, he co-founded and served as CEO of Zimba, a developer of mobile applications that provided integrated real-time access to corporate, personal, and external information. Earlier in his career, Mr. Pancha led the U.S. development of decision support products at Oracle Corporation. During his 8-year tenure at Oracle, he initiated and spearheaded the development of Browser and Discoverer, Oracle's flagship query building and business intelligence tools. Mr. Pancha holds degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Ivan Chong
Senior Vice President and General Manager, Data Quality
Informatica
Ivan Chong is currently General Manager for Informatica's Data Quality Business Unit. He has also headed up Informatica's Product Marketing as well as worked in the Corporate Strategy group doing business development. For much of his career at Informatica, Ivan served as Vice President of Product Management. Mr. Chong is also a 6-year veteran of Oracle Corporation, where he held various product management positions for the Oracle Tools division and was awarded a patent in the area of database visualization. His experience also includes two years with internet advertising startup, NetGravity, a company that developed mission critical server products for high traffic commercial web sites. Mr. Chong has spoken at numerous user conferences both in the US and internationally. He graduated with undergraduate and graduate degrees from MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Dr. Chris Boorman
Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer
Informatica
Mr. Boorman is responsible for Informatica's global voice to the market which includes corporate, partner, and field marketing. He joined Informatica with over 20 years of international marketing leadership experience at enterprise software category leaders including SDL, salesforce.com, VERITAS and Oracle. Most recently, Boorman was Chief Marketing Officer at SDL, a leading Global Information Management enterprise software vendor offering language translation technology and services. Prior to joining SDL, Boorman was vice president for EMEA marketing at salesforce.com, the worldwide leader in on-demand Customer Relationship Management services. Before salesforce.com, Boorman led EMEA marketing for nearly a decade at the leading enterprise software vendor, VERITAS. He also held various positions in Consulting, Pre-Sales Support and Product Marketing during his 10-year tenure at Oracle. Additionally, Boorman was a founding board member of the European Storage Networking Industry Association as well as a board member of the Fibre Channel Industry. Boorman attended Southampton University in the UK earning a Doctorate in Magnetism and Engineering, a Masters Degree in Cryogenics and Applications and a First Class Honors Bachelors degree in Physics.

Tony Young
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Informatica
Mr. Young serves as vice president and chief information officer of Informatica with responsibility for the strategic direction of Informatica’s global information systems and technology infrastructure.  During his tenure at Informatica, Mr. Young and the Information Technology department have won two prestigious industry awards, including the 2006 CIO Decision Midmarket Leadership Award and the 2006 Ventana Research IT Performance Management Leadership Award.  Prior to joining Informatica in 2002, Mr. Young served at Mindcrossing and Converge, where he was responsible for overseeing product development and product management.  Mr. Young began his career at HP where he served for 11 years in a number of information technology and marketing roles.  A major milestone at HP included building the first partner portal, as well as building the enterprise portal and e-commerce.  Mr. Young earned a bachelor’s degree in information systems and a master’s degree in business administration from Santa Clara University.

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