Carolina ORBIE Leadership Award recipient: For former Old Dominion Freight Line CISO Jim O’Connell, leadership is all about staying curious
When Jim O’Connell looks back on his career, he doesn't define success by titles, technologies, or milestones. Instead, he measures it by the influence he’s had on people.
“I’d like to think I haven't reached my greatest achievements yet,” said O’Connell, former Chief Information Security Officer at Old Dominion Freight Line and recipient of the 2026 Carolina ORBIE Leadership Award. “But I’d say the influence I’ve had on technologies, security, business, industry, and most importantly people are my greatest achievements to date.”
That people-first philosophy has been shaped by a career spanning application development, enterprise architecture, infrastructure leadership, and cybersecurity. Along the way, O’Connell has remained driven by a passion for learning and a commitment to helping others grow.
From coding to cybersecurity leadership
Growing up in northern New Jersey as one of seven children, O’Connell says he spent much of his childhood outdoors. After graduating from college, his first job was as a technician in a radioactive pharmaceutical lab. Since the idea of working near radiation for the next four decades was “not terribly appealing,” O’Connell turned to IT.
“The challenge of learning something new, solving puzzles, and creating solutions greatly appealed to me,” he said.
O’Connell began his career in application development, working with technologies like Assembler, COBOL, Visual Basic, and Java. During the height of the dot-com era, he became the first technical employee at an online trading startup and helped build a white-label internet trading platform for small and midsize brokers. Though the company became profitable within its first year, it ultimately shared the fate of many internet startups during the dot-com collapse.
As his career evolved into infrastructure, management, and enterprise architecture, O’Connell found his focus shifting away from technology alone and toward developing people. A pivotal chapter came during his time at the Federal Reserve, where he worked alongside the organization's first CISO.
“He taught me an immense amount about information security, its place in a business, and about acting as a leader and a mentor in a vast organization,” O’Connell said.
Those lessons continued to shape O’Connell’s leadership as he led cybersecurity at Old Dominion Freight Line, where his work to build a strong team and positively influence the business were “clear achievements.”
Growing by leaving the comfort zone
O’Connell is quick to admit that leadership didn't come naturally. “My career started as an introverted, Walkman-wearing, coffee-drinking, leave-me-alone-and-let-me-code IT guy,” he said.
Over time, he intentionally challenged himself to step outside his comfort zone, taking on opportunities that required collaboration, communication, and leadership.
Looking back, he credits many of those opportunities to leaders who believed in him before he fully believed in himself. “I’ve come to appreciate the hurdles that leaders in my past cleared for me and the opportunities they provided," he said.
Throughout his career, he’s strived to create those same opportunities for others, helping his teams grow collectively and individually.
And speaking of the next generation, O’Connell believes IT leaders of the future should remain relentlessly curious.
“My advice is to be passionate about learning—about technology, security, and people,” he said. “The business that you support may change over time, but understanding, staying close to, and keeping current on those three things will take you a long way.”
Giving back through service
Outside of work, O’Connell has invested in his community through coaching Little League, serving on the board of a community literacy organization, and volunteering on a local road race planning committee.
Within cybersecurity, he actively participates in local CISO groups and continues sharing insights with peers through podcasts and speaking opportunities.
Whether mentoring future leaders, strengthening his organization, or giving back to his community, O’Connell sees leadership as an opportunity to lift others up.
It’s a philosophy that has guided every stage of his career and one he hopes will continue shaping the next generation of cybersecurity leaders.