INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INNOVATOR AWARD
Niraj Patel is Executive Vice President and CIO at GMAC Commercial Holding Corporation. The Information Technology (IT) department at GMAC Commercial Holding Corp. (GMACCH) is considered the best in the family of General Motors (GM) subsidiaries, known most notably for its dedication to implementing leading edge technologies that improve business performance and operational efficiencies. Led by Niraj Patel, Executive Vice President (EVP) and Chief Information Officer (CIO), the IT department has built the company’s technology from the ground up and was praised as the Best of Breed in web technologies for all of General Motors. Patel serves as a key player in the company’s long-term business strategies and has helped the organization grow by exponential rates since 1994.
In his present role as EVP and CIO, Patel oversees a staff of more than 600 and guides the corporation’s worldwide activities in application development, infrastructure, telecommunications, and business unit support. He has been a frequent speaker on well-respected industry panels such as the 3Com Technology Committee and at professional conferences such as the Mortgage Bankers Technology Conference. Patel sits on executive boards for GMACCH, MortgageRamp, Group Bazin, and Deskom. In addition, he is the senior manager for McCracken Financial Services (MFS), oversees its fiscal management and budget approval, and holds executive responsibility for its customer list of external clients. Both the President of MFS and CIO of GMAC Commercial Holding Capital Corp. (GMACCHCC) report directly to Patel.
Patel’s career has included many senior-level management and technology positions in the mortgage industry. As Vice-President of Advanced Technology for GMAC Mortgage, he achieved important industry firsts and has continued that tradition of innovation as EVP and CIO. Among Patel’s accomplishments are developing Investor Query (IQ), the first investor reporting website in the commercial mortgage industry, serving as a founding member in charge of technology for MortgageRamp, and expanding the international presence of GMACCH. He also led the implementation of the first Frame Relay Wide Area Network (WAN), the first production 1000 Gigabyte network, the first 100 Megabyte Ethernet, and the first production versions of both Windows 95 and Windows XP.
Most recently, Patel has been instrumental in rolling out GMACCH’s MPLS Masergy Network, deploying voice and video over IP throughout the enterprise, and establishing IT best practices through industry certifications such as SysTrust. Furthermore, he has served in a leadership capacity for GMACCH’s involvement in Microsoft joint development projects (JDP), such as Windows XP, .NET and Speech .NET.
Patel is frequently featured in both technology and mortgage publications. His technical goals and achievements have been documented in many industry publications, such as Network World, Information Week, Banking Strategies, Computerworld, American Banker, and PC Week. Under Patel’s direction, GMACCH IT has won a number of industry awards, including Computerworld’s 2002 Best Places to Work in IT (United States), CIO Forum’s Top Financial IT Executive of 2002, and DataMirror’s 2003 Real-Time Enterprise Award for Integration. Patel is the also recipient of the 2004 CIO 100 Award – Agile 100, Realcomm Top 25 People to Watch in Commercial Real Estate for 2004, and CIO Forum Top Financial IT Executive of 2003-2004. Patel holds a bachelor’s degree from the Fox School of Business and Management in Computer and Information Sciences (now MIS), Temple University.
