CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The 15^th Annual MIT Sloan CIO Symposium today announced that Harmeen Mehta, Global CIO and CDO, Bharti Airtel, is the recipient of the prestigious 2018 MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award. Over the past decade, the Award has recognized Chief Information Officers (CIOs) who lead their organizations to deliver exemplary levels of business value through innovative use of IT.

"The MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Awards Committee is proud to present Ms. Mehta with the 2018 CIO Leadership Award," said Dr. George Westerman of MIT's Initiative on the Digital Economy and Co-Chair of the Award Program. "While we received many strong nominations for this award, Ms. Mehta has demonstrated exceptional vision and execution skills to lead digital transformation in her organization."

Ms. Mehta is the Global Chief Information Officer and Head of Digital of Bharti Airtel Limited, and as such is responsible for all of IT and engineering across India, South Asia and 14 countries in Africa. She also leads the digitization agenda across Bharti Airtel, building innovative platforms to bring new monetization opportunities to the company. Given the large scale of Airtel with over 350 million customers, Airtel runs one of the largest big data platforms and greatly leverages machine learning and AI to create a digital brain that powers these platforms. Having joined Airtel to insource key business and technology capabilities, she has now built an organization and ecosystem that drives innovation in all of the areas in which Airtel operates. Ms. Mehta is also a Board member for the TM Forum and several startups in India and Silicon Valley. She has been recognized by the Economic Times as one of the top 10 women in the telecom and tech industry across the globe.

"It is humbling and a great honor to receive this MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award," said Ms. Mehta. "Technology constantly reinvents itself and gives me opportunities to innovate and push boundaries. Bharti Airtel's entrepreneurial environment makes it the best company to do this in. This award is for all the engineering, digital and business teams, and my family who inspire me to use the power of technology and platform thinking to create a fully digital Airtel and solve real business problems at scale."

Dr. Westerman presented the award to Ms. Mehta at the pre-Symposium dinner at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge on the evening of May 22. The three other distinguished Award finalists were Akash Khurana, Vice President, CIO and Chief Digital Officer (CDO), McDermott International; Michael Macrie, Senior Vice President and CIO, Land O'Lakes; and Atefeh Riazi, Chief Information Technology Officer, Assistant Secretary-General, Office of Information and Communications Technology, United Nations.

About the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium
The MIT Sloan CIO Symposium is the premier global conference for CIOs and digital business executives to become more effective leaders. In one day, CIOs and senior IT executives explore enterprise technology innovations and business practices, and receive actionable information that enables them to meet the challenges of today and the future. The Symposium offers a unique learning environment by bringing together the academic thought leadership of MIT with the in-the-trenches experience of leading, global CIOs and industry experts. The MIT Sloan CIO Symposium is organized and developed by the MIT Sloan Boston Alumni Association, the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE), and the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). For more information and to register for this year's Symposium, visit www.mitcio.com.

Editor's Note:
Caroline Legg; caroline@warnerpr.com, Warner Communications.

SOURCE MIT Sloan CIO Symposium

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