Metro Atlanta Chamber and WNA Announce Atlanta Mobility Star Award Winners

ATLANTA- The Metro Atlanta Chamber (MAC), in partnership with WNA announced the fourth annual Atlanta Mobility Star Award winners at the GSMA Mobility Live! – North America conference last week.  The 2016 Atlanta Mobility Star Awards highlighted specific, quantifiable and implemented innovations, business results and growth that exemplify Atlanta’s leadership position as a global hub for mobile technology. 

GSMA Mobility Live! is a new conference that merged the previous GSMA Mobile 360 – North America conference, held in Atlanta in October 2015, and the Mobility LIVE! event to deliver a platform for exploring the key trends impacting the mobile industry as well as highlighting innovation and new developments impacting areas such as digital commerce, fintech, security and connected living.

The Metro Atlanta Chamber and WNA solicited nominations for “any metro Atlanta individual from business or academia that has made a substantial, quantifiable impact in the past year creating and advancing adoption or innovative use of mobile technology, and has helped grow Atlanta's presence in the center of the mobile world.”

As nominations were evaluated, some of the attributes considered included:

• Leadership in contribution to creating an effective mobility business model or solution
• Impact on the global or national mobility industry
• Impact on Atlanta’s mobility presence through jobs, recognition, support and personal contributions
• Educational and Philanthropic impact through mobility

Nominations included CEOs, Presidents, Founders, technologists, business managers and academics all worthy of recognition. The six selected represent significant accomplishments across the mobile ecosystem providing service, content, transactions and applications and join an elite group of our Stars from past years.

• Louis Gump, Chief Executive Officer at NewsON Media
• Chris Huff, Vice President, Mobile & Consumer App Development at The Weather Channel
• Bill Keen, Vice President – Mobile Solutions, Digital Guest Experience and Applied Discovery at Intercontinental Hotel Group
• Shawn Kennedy, Mobility Lead at Georgia-Pacific
• Jennifer Tillson, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Cricket Wireless
• Matt Jones and the Home Depot Mobile Team

“Recognizing the accomplishments of this year’s Atlanta Mobility Star Award winners is an important part of supporting our region’s ecosystem and encouraging growth,” said David Hartnett, chief economic development officer for the Metro Atlanta Chamber. “MAC is excited about the leadership of these companies and what that means for the rest of metro Atlanta’s mobile sector.”

“WNA is pleased to be part of the program at GSMA Mobility LIVE and proud to recognize Atlanta’s outstanding mobility talent” said Keith Hartford, President of WNA, who along with Brad Culp, Senior Vice President at WNA, presented the awards at the lunch program in front of more than 1,000 conference participants.  “This group, collectively and individually, is driving incredible business and technology innovation and results in mobility.”

Nominations for next year’s awards will open in Summer 2017.