Marie Lee Awarded "Woman of Wonder" Award 2016
ITWomen has awarded its 2016 “Woman of Wonder” award to Marie Lee, ILG’s Chief Information Officer. ITWomen President Claire Marrero presented the award to Marie before 200 of South Florida’s tech leaders at the Broward County Convention Center, preceding ITWomen’s 13th Annual Scholarship Fundraiser.
ILG is a leading provider of professionally delivered vacation experiences and the exclusive global licensee for the Hyatt, Sheraton, and Westin brands in vacation ownership. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, ILG has more than 10,000 employees worldwide.
This is the second time ITWomen has recognized Marie Lee for her outstanding leadership across South Florida’s Technology Community as a shining example among CIOs from high profile companies such as RCCL, NCL, Autonation, Perry Ellis, IPC, Restaurants International, and Tyco, of how we can help move the diversity dial, one girl at a time.
With Marie’s support, ITWomen has been able to raise over $560,000 for scholarships in technology and engineering in the STEM academic track. To date, 91 deserving girls have been awarded scholarships through ITWomen, enabling them to pursue their dreams.
Marie is one of the few female CIO’s across Tech, She truly embodies ITWomen’s mission to Inspire, Educate and Empower Women across Technology. Her support has helped ITWomen reduce the gender gap by attracting and retaining more women. Increasing women in tech fields helps fuel the future Tech Workforce that is desperately needed to fill more than 1,000,000 new technology openings projected in the U.S. by 2020.
Thanks to Marie’s championing of the ITWomen cause, other ILG team members have also contributed by volunteering to be mentors to some of the amazing young Scholarship Recipients. In addition, ILG donated a “Dream Vacation Week” as a featured prize at the “13th Annual Celebrity CIO Scholarship Drive” November 17.
Marie’s own IT Team is reflective of an inclusive strategy, comprised of a higher-than-industry average of female direct reports, and future tech leaders. This in itself is incredibly important. Companies everywhere are starting to recognize that achieving equality in tech is not only the right thing to do, but good for business, since the solutions we develop for our customers should be reflective of them.
ITWomen thanks Marie Lee and her team for supporting our efforts to strengthen our community by educating and empowering our young ladies to pursue careers in Tech for over a decade .
Read more about ITWomen’s Role Models Inspire Program, our Scholarships that Educate, and mentors that Empower.