Holocaust Museum CEO honored as female innovator of the year

SKOKIE - Susan Abrams, CEO of Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, received a gold medal as Innovator of the Year and a silver medal as Executive of the Year, by the Stevie Awards for Women in Business both in the category of Government or Nonprofit Organizations with up to 2,500 employees.

As CEO of the Museum since 2014, Abrams leads the world's third largest Holocaust museum as it employs cutting-edge technology to teach the lessons of the past and inspire positive change in the world. This includes a partnership with the USC Shoah Foundation to create holographic video recordings of Holocaust Survivors with voice recognition capability that enables the recordings to respond to visitors' questions in a powerfully lifelike way.

To fuel this innovative approach, Abrams has galvanized philanthropic support for a $30 million campaign that will secure the financial and programmatic future for the Museum's next phase of growth, including opening the Museum's groundbreaking Take A Stand Center in the fourth quarter of 2017.

"Susan has brought extraordinary leadership to the Illinois Holocaust Museum," noted J.B. Pritzker, Immediate Past Chair of the Museum's board of trustees.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives and entrepreneurs and the companies they run worldwide. The Stevie Awards have been hailed as the world's premier business awards.