Burr & Forman’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) LaTesha Blair has been unveiled as an “Alabama CIO of the Year” finalist by ORBIE Awards.

As Burr & Forman’s Chief Information Officer, LaTesha oversees the overall direction, coordination, and evaluation of the firm’s IT services. With more than two decades of experience, Latesha manages Burr’s technology initiatives, implementation, and support as well as the department’s team.

When describing her greatest success in her role, LaTesha said, “One of my greatest accomplishments as CIO was to keep our lawyers and support staff working and fully functional while working remotely during the shutdown due to the pandemic. We went from having a 5 percent remote workforce to a 95 percent remote work environment seemingly overnight. My team stepped up to the challenge by assessing and expanding our remote capabilities fairly quickly to accommodate the demand. With great effort the transition was seamless and mostly painless to our end users.”

According to the Birmingham Business Journal, The CIO of the Year ORBIE Awards is the premier technology executive recognitions program in the U.S., with hundreds of CIOs honored as finalists around the nation since 1998. The ORBIE honors Chief Information Officers who have demonstrated excellence in technology leadership. In the fourth “Alabama CIO of the Year” ORBIE Awards, 16 finalists were selected across four categories.

Finalists were selected based on criteria that included size and scope of responsibilities, leadership and management effectiveness, business value created by technology innovation and engagement in industry and community endeavors. Finalists were selected from a large field of nominations, representing technology leaders at many of the largest and most successful companies and organizations across Alabama. Winners will be announced at the Alabama CIO awards on April 14th, 2022.