Fox Information Technology Award Recipients

Digital leaders Hamilton, Wink, and Geatens honored at 22nd Annual IT Awards

Temple University’s Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) honored three accomplished digital leaders at its 22nd Annual Information Technology Awards.

The awards event, held Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Philadelphia, brought together an elite group of tech leaders, innovators and disruptors for an engaging evening of celebration amongst the IBIT community. Dean Chip Hunter started the program by welcoming the participants. The rest of the evening spotlighted the honorees who shared their expertise and vision.

Jeff Hamilton, Chief Information Officer, Teva Pharmaceuticals received the 2024 Information Technology Leader Award. Hamilton is responsible for technology systems and infrastructure in 60 countries and 50 plants at Teva. Previously, Hamilton was Senior Vice President, Pfizer Digital with responsibility for manufacturing, supply chain and finance systems. He directed Pfizer’s digital efforts to rapidly scale COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution of billions of doses to more than 170 countries.

Chris Wink, cofounder and CEO of Technical.ly, received the 2024 Information Technology Innovator Award. Wink, a journalist and entrepreneur, co-founded Technical.ly, a news and community resource for technologists and entrepreneurs. Wink is the lead organizer of Philly Tech Week and in 2022, he was named one of Pennsylvania’s most influential impact leaders, and in 2017 Folio magazine named him one of the 100 most innovative media leaders in the country.

Fran Geatens, Vice President, Technology Infrastructure, Operations, and Experience, Merck received the 2024 Information Technology Award for Distinguished Alumni. Geatens is responsible for managing Merck’s worldwide technology infrastructure and business applications. He led Merck’s accelerated cloud transformation that is enabling new ways of working. Geatens is a graduate of Temple University’s Fox School of Business.

This year’s group of honorees are truly exceptional and we are proud to recognize them as digital innovation leaders.
Munir Mandviwalla, Executive Director

A sub-committee of the IBIT advisory board including George Llado (committee chair), Sondra Barbour, Michael Bradshaw, Andrea Stewart, and Bruce Fadem (board chair) identified nominees for the 2024 awards from a list of 62 candidates. These nominations were submitted to and approved by the entire board. Fadem, Barbour, and Llado also introduced each award recipient at the event.

The impact of the 2024 awards was rated highly on IBIT’s new Impact Model with an average score of 5.94 on a scale from 1 to 7 with 7 being the highest rating. The highest rating of 6.43 was for the value of participating in the activity, while the lowest rating of 4.92 was for contributing to the success of the activity. The following is a sample of comments included in the above responses.

It was even better than the last year. I loved it.
Student Participant

Great to see the strides the program has made and industry connections to strengthen IBIT’s place in the market.
Industry Participant

The event was the best so far. Excellent choice of venue, everything was very professionally run.
Industry Participant

For more about the IT awards and honorees, visit https://ibit.temple.edu/itawards/. To see the event pictures, click here.
For more details about the impact assessment, visit: https://ibit.temple.edu/impact

CHRIS WINK

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INNOVATOR AWARD

Christopher Wink is a journalist and entrepreneur who is cofounder and CEO of Technical.ly, the news organization with a community of technologists and entrepreneurs. He specializes in local economic development, including entrepreneurship and tech workforce trends, journalism strategy and building trust online. He was previously publisher of Generocity.org, which reports on the nonprofit sector, and a former media director for a homeless advocacy nonprofit.

He is lead organizer of Philly Tech Week, cofounder of Baltimore Innovation Week and is behind other events that bring together smart people. In 2022, Wink was named one of Pennsylvania’s most influential impact leaders, and in 2017 Folio magazine listed him as one of the 100 most innovative media leaders in the country.

The 2008 Temple University alumnus is a bicycle commuter of Philadelphia. Wink reads a lot of books, makes a lot of charts, drinks a lot of whiskey and harbors fantasies of being a fiction writer worth reading.

TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL IT AWARDS

JEFFREY M. HAMILTON

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LEADER AWARD

Jeff Hamilton is Chief Information Officer at Teva Pharmaceuticals responsible for the company’s technology systems and infrastructure in 60 countries and 50 plants. Hamilton and his team partner across the company to leverage technology and data to drive innovation and growth for better global health.

Prior to joining Teva, Hamilton was Senior Vice-President, Pfizer Digital with responsibility for the company’s manufacturing, supply chain and finance systems, and was a member of Pfizer Global Supply leadership team. He directed Pfizer’s digital efforts to rapidly scale COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution of billions of doses to more than 170 countries using innovative technologies to maximize the number of patients served.

Hamilton also led the launch and scaling of Pfizer’s Center for Digital Innovation in Greece, and oversaw all digital activities in support of the company’s business development deals including acquisitions and divestitures.

Previously, Hamilton was a member of Pfizer’s commercial leadership team and was accountable for the digital work to better serve healthcare providers and patients globally, and achieve the strategic priorities of the $40B business. Hamilton was also responsible for Pfizer’s global ERP program and led the operational transformation effort to horizontally integrate the company’s processes.

Prior to joining Pfizer, Hamilton held executive positions at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in commercial, manufacturing, supply chain and information technology. Preceding Wyeth, Hamilton was an Associate Partner at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) where he specialized in leading large technology-enabled transformation programs for healthcare and other Fortune 500 companies

TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL IT AWARDS

FRAN GEATENS

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI

Fran Geatens is Vice President, Technology Infrastructure, Operations, and Experience at Merck. In this role, Fran is responsible for managing the technology infrastructure and business applications that underpin Merck’s business operations globally, enabling the company to save and improve lives around the world. Likewise, Fran and his team are leading Merck’s accelerated cloud transformation that is modernizing the technology landscape at the company and enabling new ways of working.

Prior to this role, Fran led IT and strategy realization for Merck’s Consumer Care (MCC) business unit. This included support for R&D, supply chain, and commercial functions with a focus on driving business growth, agility, and innovation. Fran was also responsible for MCC strategic performance management, business planning, and served as chief of staff for the MCC division president.

During his previous tenure at Merck, Fran held various IT leadership roles supporting the sales, marketing, manufacturing, supply chain, and finance functions that drive Merck’s pharmaceutical and vaccine business. Fran joined Merck in 1993.

Fran earned his bachelor’s degree in Information Systems from Drexel University. He also earned his MBA in Finance from the Fox School of Business, Temple University.

TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL IT AWARDS

KARTHIK K. SRIDHARAN

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI

Karthik Sridharan is Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at OceanFirst Bank, which he joined in 2019. Previously, Karthik was the Chief Technology Officer at Citigroup and held leadership roles in global technology management with JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He was also Industry Manager at Microsoft before entering the financial services industry.

In the above roles, he has enabled strategy of “Build the Digital Bank” from the dotcom era to contemporary roles with realized transformation of direct-to-customer web, social media, mobile first, and multi-channel solutions for banking business lines. He has also modernized application time to market through new development and architecture evolutions of Technology Blueprints and patterns. He has improved from years to months to days, wealth management, retail banking, commercial banking, trading, and money movement business solution delivery by realizing strategies for private, public, and hybrid “cloud-first, mobile-first” applications for customer communications and engagement. Karthik has also worked on merger, acquisition, and divestiture technology integration and separation for community and global banking customers seeking to grow or divest retail and commercial footprints.

Karthik volunteers with community and industry organizations such as the Go Africa Network Inc. and Wall Street Technology Association. Karthik has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and information systems management from Temple University Fox School of Business.