2013 Georgia CIO of the Year Award Goes to Cbeyond's Carrie Wheeler

Today's technological environment changes rapidly, and organizations that are not able to keep up with the latest development in their field can find themselves behind. In order to ensure an organization is always in the forefront when it comes to adopting the required technology, it needs to compete by hiring the right Chief Information Officer (CIO). As head of IT within the organization, he or she must support the enterprise goals with information technology and computer systems. During the 15th annual Georgia CIO of the Year Awards program held in Atlanta, the organization recognized Carrie Wheeler, Cbeyond's senior vice president and chief information officer, as 2013 CIO of the Year in the "Enterprise" category (for companies with 1,000 to 10,000 employees).

Cbeyond, Inc. is a cloud and communications services provider that supports small and mid-sized business with its private, proactively-managed IP network connecting customers to voice, data and enterprise applications hosted in its cloud data centers. The company has close to 60,000 customers with an all-IP network especially designed for small businesses with consultative sales and service professionals onsite.

The Georgia CIO of the Year Awards was established in 1998 to recognize CIOs that have excelled in their field by managing the organization and its enterprise wide information systems. The candidates are selected by distinguished CIO judges composed of prior winners and other valued members of the industry. Winners are chosen based on contributions in innovation, leadership, business value and community involvement.

Carrie A. Wheeler joined the company in 2009, and has been Cbeyond's CIO responsible for the organization's IT strategy, capital planning and management, and application development. Before joining the company Mrs. Wheeler held IT leadership positions at AT&T, BellSouth, MCI Communications and Accenture with a variety functions. Some of her responsibilities included IT strategy, merger and acquisition planning and execution, customer operations, development, quality assurance, program management and capital management. Mrs. Wheeler participates in the community she lives by serving on the board of the Georgia Ballet and actively supporting Girls Inc. Additionally she is a member of several organizations including the Technology Association of Georgia, Women in Technology, Atlanta Telecommunications Professionals and Cbeyond's Women's Network.

Mrs. Wheeler holds a Masters in Business Administration from Southern Methodist University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing & Finance from Trinity University.

"I am delighted to be awarded the 2013 Enterprise CIO of the Year Award by my peers. This recognition is representative of the hard work, dedication and execution from our superb team of information technology professionals, engineers and business managers who have continued to drive business value internally and externally for Cbeyond," said Carrie Wheeler, senior vice president and chief information officer, Cbeyond.