Joan Smemoe

Joan Smemoe is Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Vice President of Information Technology at Railinc. As CIO, Smemoe is at the helm of software development and applications engineering and is instrumental in shaping the company’s vision for product development, data, and information systems platforms. Under her technical leadership, Railinc delivers a wide array of applications and technologies that are critical to freight rail industry operations in North America. Smemoe recently led a successful three-year migration to refactor and re-platform Railinc workloads to run natively on cloud, enabling the company to exit their on-prem data centers. With more than 20 years of experience in IT, Smemoe brings strong technology leadership and expertise critical to Railinc’s day-to-day operations, growth, and ability to serve its customers.

A 2020 Triangle Business Journal C-Suite Awards honoree, Smemoe is an influential executive officer who has also been honored with a Supply Chain and Demand Executive’s Women in Supply Chain award, recognized by Railway Age magazine’s Women in Rail awards and Progressive Railroading magazine’s Rising Star awards, in 2022, 2019 and 2018, respectively. Smemoe holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science from the University of Missouri and completed Carnegie Mellon University’s CIO Certificate Program. She is also PMP-certified.