Ambit Energy CIO Wins 2010 InfoWorld CTO 25 Award
John Burke recognized for contributions to utility and information technology innovation
(DALLAS) – Ambit Energy, a leading national retail energy provider based in Dallas, announced that John Burke, its Chief Information Officer, was selected as one of IDG’s 2010 InfoWorld CTO 25, a listing the top Chief Technology Officers of 2010. Burke was recognized for maximizing the potential of smart grid technology by creating a new industry-specific IT infrastructure. Each year, the InfoWorld CTO 25 Awards honor senior IT executives who have demonstrated leadership within their companies and in the IT community.
“I‘m incredibly humbled to be recognized among such a respected group of industry leaders,” said Burke. “This award validates our entire team’s commitment to becoming the finest and most-respected retail energy provider in the country.”
As a result of Burke’s vision, Ambit Energy built and deployed a pre-paid electricity billing and messaging system that uses smart meters to offer consumers a plan with lower costs than traditional pre-pay electricity plans in less than three months. Ambit was one of the first electric retail providers to offer this service in the country.
When Ambit Energy was formed in 2006, Burke and the executive team quickly determined there weren’t any IT vendors with systems that met their high standards. Burke led the charge to build Ambit Energy’s IT infrastructure from scratch – an arduous task that created not only company-specific IT solutions, but also an IT infrastructure that was smart meter ready.
“Everyone knows that 2009 was an extraordinarily tough year for most organizations, so most IT groups had to hunker down and defer many innovative efforts as revenues dried up and keeping the lights on became the only focus,” said Galen Gruman, executive editor of InfoWorld.
“Despite that environment, some CTOs were able to move forward with innovation,” Gruman continued, “in some cases finding ways to create new opportunities for their business and in others leveraging the economic crisis to make their IT operations significantly better even as they got leaner. The ability to be innovative and cost-effective was very evident in this year’s InfoWorld CTO 25 winning entries. These IT leaders combined management savvy, technological insight, and the ability to lead a team to success despite difficult circumstances. This year’s honorees reinvented untenable legacies, provided game-changing insight, and managed both their own teams and key organization stakeholders to make their businesses succeed through the use of technology. Our honorees did much more than implement technology well; they brought its use to a new level.”