Laura Kohl is a recognized technology leader with extensive global business experience across multiple industries, including financial services, travel and transportation, retail, supply chain, and quick service restaurants. She is the Chief Information Officer for Morningstar (Nasdaq: MORN) a global financial services firm providing an array of investment research and investment management including software and data platforms for investment professionals.

Most recently she joined Morningstar as CIO, to lead its global technology efforts by transforming employee experience and tools to be growth ready. Laura’s responsibilities include a cloud migration strategy, deploying new capabilities for contact center, transforming service and support, content management, and managing and upgrading global corporate systems, infrastructure, cloud services, security and operations. She has previously held senior IT positions at Ulta Beauty, United Airlines, WW Grainger, and McDonald’s Corporation.

Prior to Morningstar, as the Senior Vice President for Applications, Data and Integration at Ulta Beauty, Laura led a team of team of more than 400 associates with budget of over $70M. With responsibility for all enterprise application development, (including eCommerce, enterprise and guest mobility, loyalty, marketing, merchandising, finance, HR, supply chain, store and distribution center technology), Laura helped create the next generation omnichannel business by integrating and optimizing digital and physical experiences for store, supply chain, digital operations and store of the future, while pivoting with business changes due to COVID.

In her role as Managing Director of Engineering and Field and Support Services for United Airlines, Laura led a global IT organization of more than 550 with budget of over $225M. Responsible for changing the support culture support at all locations, Laura developed new applications and technologies to successfully transform the customer and employee user experience.

As VP of International and Business Integration and International CIO for WW Grainger, Laura led a global team of more than 50 IT professionals across US, China, Latin America and Europe. Serving as a trusted advisor to Supply Chain, eCommerce and international business executives, Laura drove programs for process transformation, applications, integrations, growth, acquisitions and turnarounds. She also served as international CIO for Brazil, China, India, Europe, and Latin America operations.

Laura also served in various roles for McDonald’s Corporation including as the Regional CIO, for US, Latin America and Canada, providing direct support for 14,000+ store locations and 22 regional offices with 3,000 employees. Among her accomplishments, Laura led the development a five-year strategic roadmap used by franchisees as a guide for planning and investments. Laura began her career as an Application Developer for Waste Management.

Laura has an M.B.A. from DePaul University in Management Information Systems with a focus on Entrepreneurship, and a B.S. in MIS and Finance from the University of St. Francis. She also has completed leadership training at Washington University.

In 2023, she was named Chicago Orbie CIO of the Year along with being named one of the top 100 Women in Tech to Watch. She also serves on the DePaul University Driehaus School of Business Executive Advisory Committee and is an advisor for various commercial committees including Insight, Workday and Asana.