Full Name
Gertrude G. Van Horn
Job Title
Senior Vice President and the Chief Information Officer
Company
NCH Corporation
Speaker Bio
Gertrude G. Van Horn is a senior vice president and the chief information officer at NCH Corporation, a $1 billion privately held global leader in industrial, commercial and institutional maintenance products and services with locations in more than 50 countries. Trude leads NCH’s global IT team of more than 100 technology professionals, based primarily in the Dallas metroplex area, along with staff located in the UK, Europe and Asia. The NCH IT team supports the activity of over 7,500 NCH associates around the world with global technology solutions, network, helpdesk, cloud hosting and emerging technologies. Trude’s team provides the backbone for a very diverse portfolio of growing NCH businesses, products and services while enabling NCH global business opportunities for growth and efficiency.

Trude has a strong history of driving results, challenging the norm and transforming business performance. She combines her strategic thinking capabilities, expert communication skills, passion for driving business value and success in coaching and mentoring the next generation of leaders in her role as CIO. She also commits a significant portion of her time to various professional and community organizations.

Trude joined NCH in January of 2011. Under her leadership, the NCH IT team has a strong track record of global achievement, reliable execution, innovative solutions, IT cost savings and cost avoidance.
NCH Accomplishments include:
Significant technology infrastructure changes to support security, GDPR, data protection, compliance
Global deployment of Oracle in more than 35 countries across Europe, Asia and North America
Global CRM deployment to over 2000 global sales associates using Salesforce Force.com technology
Robotic Process Automation
Global development and roll-out of proprietary sales order management tools unique to each region
Cloud migration, hosting and disaster recovery for multiple instances of Oracle
New external Firewalls, Internal Firewalls, Security Zones, Hyper converged infrastructure
Improved resiliency and recovery capabilities for NCH hosted applications and virtual servers
Honors, affiliations and community involvement:
International Technology and Leadership speaking events - Dallas, Tokyo, London, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Diego
CIO recognition and nominations - Innotech, Dallas Business Journal, Tech Titans and Dallas CIO
Dallas CIO – 2019 Chair, 2018 Vice Chair
Rimini Street (RMNI) – Chairman - Global Client Advisory Board
Irving / Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce - Executive Board; Chair of Tech Leadership Committee
DFW Alliance for Technology & Women (ATW) – Advisory Board
Executive Women’s Forums – Advisory Board
The Study - Irving Innovation Center - Advisory Board
Before coming to NCH, Trude held roles in technology leadership at American Express, JP Morgan, Jo-Ann Stores, Office Depot, Haggar Clothing Company and Victoria’s Secret. Born and raised outside of Philadelphia, Trude graduated from Temple University and currently resides in Irving, TX with her husband.

Advice: Work for someone you admire, work with people you trust and hire people who are smarter than you!
Gertrude G. Van Horn