Sonia Clayton
Sonia Clayton is an entrepreneur and philanthropist. She is the CEO/CIO of Virtual Intelligence Providers, LLC. (VIP-Global) a Houston, Texas–based, technology innovation firm. She was appointed by Texas governor Greg Abbott to serve at the Texas Judicial Council.
Sonia pioneered some of the first enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems implementations in the Oil & Gas (Energy) sector. Her background includes over 20 years of experience in IT/IS platforms, open/user innovation, hybrid training programs, and experiential e-Learning.
In 1991, she was a French, Spanish, and Portuguese interpreter with Air France. Two years later she joined Continental Airlines as a corporate security investigator and was promoted to European operations, in-flight recruiting, international negotiations, and airport HR/IS operations. In her role as organizational change management (OCM) tranformational manager, she helped Continental expand into Latin America.
In 2019, Sonia was named one of USA’s Most influential Top Latina Executives, in Washington DC. She is one of Houston’s Most Influential Women in Business. She is an alumna of the SLEI program at Stanford Graduate School of Business and is a member of the board of trustees of Sampoerna University in Indonesia. She is also a faculty advisory board member at Brigham Young University Marriott School of Business.
She earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Universidad del Zulia. She then received an associate’s degree in business administration and management from Salt Lake Community College. She earned a BS degree in business administration and management from Capella University. She received a certificate in organizational leadership from London Business School and holds a degree from the accelerated MBA program at Harvard Business School.
She is the recipient of numerous awards including Top Latina Executive of the Year (Latina Style 50, 2018); Most Admired CEO (Houston Business Journal, 2018); Women Who Mean Business, Outstanding leaders in professional services (Houston Business Journal, 2017); Brillante Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence (Prospanica, 2016); Outstanding CEO, Small Business (Houston Business Journal, 2016); Woman of Distinction Award (Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce, 2015); Woman of the Year (Penta Communications, 2015); and The U.S. House of Representatives Commendation (2014).
She is a longtime volunteer with Mormon Helping Hands. VIP Angels for Soldiers Foundation, VIP Education Foundation, VIP Cancer Foundation, She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
