“Technology Partners and Ouellette & Associates celebrated the graduation of the 11th cohort of the St. Louis Technology Leadership Experience (TechLX) program on Thursday.
Dan Roberts, chief executive officer and host of the Tech Whisperers podcast, opened the virtual graduation celebration by hosting a leadership panel with Michael Foster (Senior VP & Global Head of Business Solutions and Digital Delivery, RGA), Frank Lanuto (Chief Information Officer, Barry-Wehmiller), and Erin Williams (Chief Information Officer, Hussmann Corporation).
“Thank you to every organization, mentor, sponsor, and participant for making this program the success it is. You are why we are doing what we do,” said Lisa Nichols, chief executive officer of Technology Partners. She continued, “I found myself smiling from ear-to-ear the whole time until my jaw hurt, but then also getting teary-eyed at times when I heard the gratitude and respect shared among the group. There is clearly an appetite for community building within St. Louis’ IT sector, and we are proud to be a catalyst for bringing great professionals together.”
The event celebrated 23 graduates from the IT Sector: Courtney Bowser - Technology Partners, Praneeth Kumar Charla Gorla - Cass Information Systems, Dan Williams – WUSTL, Sarah Everett – WUSTL, Eric Neuhaus – Maritz, Harpreet Taluja – Ameren, Lisa Bertke – Ameren, Shanker Kalmannagari – Bayer, Bizzy Hyde – Panera, Shawn Bullock – Panera, Victoria McKinney – Panera, Adam Przybyszewski - Edward Jones, Priya Krishna - Edward Jones, Christine Knobbe - Edward Jones, Stephen Leard - St. Louis Zoo, Kristin Gallagher – Mastercard, Gurjeet Singh Bhullar – Mastercard, Natalie Fisher – Mastercard, Tushar Deore – Energizer, April England – McCarthy, Arun Rajagopalan – McCarthy, Pete Thamke – Bunzl, Dennis Favro - Bunzl.
Individuals and organizations that won awards included: The Leader Amongst Leaders Award – Chris Knobbe, Edward Jones; The Mentoring Excellence Award – Lisa Flagg, Bayer & John Stefanyak, MiTek; The Marketing Excellence Award – Energizer, Tushar Deore; The Community Leadership Award – Cass Information Systems.
The graduation ceremony was followed by an in-person happy hour to allow for networking and relationship building.
Founded in 2018, the TechLX program features a wide range of career advancement offerings, including IT leadership development workshops, individual mentoring, peer connections, and regular networking events.
