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Internet2 Names IBM Executive Florence D. Hudson as Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer

 

Global leader in business and technology to fill critical role to support future innovation needs of research and higher education

 

WASHINGTON, March 6, 2015—Internet2 announced today that it has appointed Florence D. Hudson as senior vice president and chief innovation officer (CINO) effective March 16. Hudson has more than 33 years in leadership positions at IBM including vice president and director in Corporate Strategy, vice president in the Systems and Technology Group, and vice president and acting chief technology officer of the IBM Global Industrial Sector.  She brings a unique integration of business and technical experience and will provide senior strategic leadership for Internet2 and the broader research and higher education community in the areas of innovation, advanced technologies and new services.  

 

Most recently, Hudson served as IBM’s director of Internet of Things Business Development.  Prior to that she was director in Corporate Strategy, where she led the development of business and technical growth strategies including partnerships and execution plans for the Internet of Things, analytics, energy and environment, cloud computing, hardware, software and services.

 

In her new role at Internet2, Hudson will serve as the primary focal point to stimulate and catalyze the tremendous innovative capacity of the entire Internet2 community.   She will organize new technology-driven initiatives across and beyond advanced networking and infrastructure, federated identity management and cloud services.  She will also broaden the scope and value of Internet2 to its members by collaboratively and proactively working with the research and education (R&E) community to develop and implement new, leading-edge concepts.

 

A distinguished group of higher education and corporate leaders from the Internet2 community spearheaded the CINO search. John Kolb, Internet2 Board of Trustees member and vice president for information services and technology and chief information officer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, served as the search committee chair. “After an extensive and thoughtful search process, I am extremely pleased that Florence has accepted the CINO position,” Kolb said. “She brings an exceptional and deep combination of industry and technical experience to the role.”

 

H. David Lambert, president and CEO of Internet2, added, “I firmly believe that Florence is the perfect fit to continue the legacy of fostering innovation for the Internet2 R&E community.  I’d also like to personally thank each member of the search committee for their time and efforts spent on filling this important role that will benefit all members for years to come.”

 

During her career, Hudson spent a year as executive-on-loan and IBM vice president of strategic planning for the Society of Women Engineers where she developed new programs to inspire girls and women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics worldwide.

 

Prior to her numerous leadership roles at IBM, Hudson worked for Hewlett-Packard, Grumman Corporation and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she worked on projects including solar power satellites, the space shuttle program and future missions around Jupiter. Hudson holds a B.S.E. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University, and has attended executive education at Harvard Business School and Columbia University.

 

Hudson has lectured widely on many topics, including a TEDx talk regarding energy and the environment in 2012, as well as at Advanced Energy Conferences, Princeton, Columbia and Harvard Universities, and in many countries including China, South Korea, Vietnam, Spain, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Trinidad.

 

“I have followed Internet2’s work and understand the rich history the community has in driving technical advancements, scientific discoveries and new innovations,” said Hudson.  “I am excited personally to take on this new challenge as I fully recognize the technology foundations that Internet2 and the R&E community have laid over the past 19 years, and I look forward to working closely with the community to stimulate the creation of new technologies and services.”

 

Hudson will be based out of Internet2’s New York City satellite office.

 

About Internet2
Internet2® is a member-owned advanced technology community founded by the nation's leading higher education institutions in 1996. Internet2 provides a collaborative environment for U.S. research and education organizations to solve common technology challenges, and to develop innovative solutions in support of their educational, research, and community service missions. Internet2 also operates the nation’s largest and fastest, coast-to-coast research and education network, in which the Network Operations Center is powered by Indiana University. Internet2 serves more than 90,000 community anchor institutions, 260 U.S. universities, 65 government agencies, 40 regional and state education networks, 85 leading corporations working with our community and more than 65 national research and education networking partners representing more than 100 countries. Internet2 offices are located in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Denver, Colo.; Emeryville, Calif.; Washington, D.C; and West Hartford, Conn. For more information, visit www.internet2.edu or follow @Internet2 on Twitter.