Opening Ceremonies and Keynote Address

The Greg Gulick Service Excellence Award is awarded annually to two IT professionals at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The award honors campus IT professionals who exemplify Greg's values and commitment to collaboration and servant leadership

Chris Tidrick
Senior Director of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
Gies College of Business

Think. Feel. Lead. Great strategic ideas and executive presence are no longer the only table stakes for effective leadership. Today, our leaders are expected to be authentic, put people first, and possess a high level of emotional intelligence. Chris Tidrick will guide us through his leadership journey while focusing on the lessons he’s learned that serve to combine great ideas (the THINK) with emotional intelligence (the FEEL) to LEAD people and organizations to do the right things in the right way.

Chris’ professional purpose is building collaborative teams that align passion, talent, and growth with organizational mission. He has worked in higher education technology for 31 years, first as a web and application developer, then leading IT organizations since 2012. He is currently the Chief Information Officer and Senior Director of IT for the Gies College of Business, the chair of the UIUC Generative AI Solutions Hub, and a lead facilitator for the IT Leadership Workshop. He is a graduate of the MOR IT Leaders Program (2015) and MOR Advanced Leaders Program (2022). He earned a master’s in urban planning from UIUC (1999) and a bachelor’s in government and international studies from Notre Dame (1993).