SB Profiles
Executive Q&A: Adriane Brown & the Idea Factory
In January, Adriane Brown celebrated the fifth anniversary of her joining Intellectual Ventures as president and COO. Brown seemed an unconventional choice to run a 600-employee nonmanufacturing firm that has acquired 70,000 patents and monetized 40,000 of them. But, as one who has always been comfortable with change, she embraced the vision of IV cofounder…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Lifetime Achievement
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Phyllis Campbell Chair, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Pacific Northwest Phyllis Campbell returned to banking five years ago for the same reasons she left it: community. She had risen to become CEO of U.S. Banks Northwest operations, but stepped down to lead The Seattle Foundation. She drove a dramatic expansion of its philanthropic…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Karl Triebes
Karl Triebes Executive Vice President of Product Development & Chief Technology Officer, F5 Networks Networks can quickly become a tangle of cables, and Karl Triebes knows the same thing can happen to a network companys product line. Thats why his first task as CTO of F5 Networks was to unify its offerings into a portfolio…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Deborah Jensen
Deborah Jensen President & CEO, Woodland Park Zoo When Deborah Jensen took the helm of Woodland Park Zoo in 2002, her task was huge. She had to transition the beloved institution from being funded and run by the city to its being a more independent nonprofit. The chore was akin to a merger, she says,…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Don Rench
Don Rench Chief Legal Officer, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Outerwall Fourteen years at Outerwall hasnt given Don Rench any chance to get into a rut. When he joined the company, it was a startup called Coinstar and the legal work focused largely on patents related to its coin-counting kiosks. When the company launched its…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Jon Fine
Jon Fine President & CEO, United Way of King County Keeping focused is vital, says Jon Fine, especially for an organization as large as United Way. We dont have unlimited resources, he explains, so we apply them where they make the biggest difference in solving the most important problems. To that end, Fine has put…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Tom Berquist
Tom Berquist Senior Vice President of Marketing and Cooperative Affairs, BECU When the banking crisis of 2008 hit, BECU found it had already laid the groundwork for its membership growth. As Tom Berquist notes, his marketing department had been advertising for a couple of years. When consumers began seeking alternatives to big banks, he says,…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Paul Lambros
Paul Lambros Executive Director, Plymouth Housing Group It takes nimbleness to house the disabled and chronically homeless affordably in Seattles heated downtown real estate market, but Paul Lambros knows the right steps. The nonprofit he has served for more than two decades, Plymouth Housing Group, recently opened new units in South Lake Union and on…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Spencer Rascoff
Spencer Rascoff CEO, Zillow Inc. Few chief executives thrive on exposure as much as Zillows Spencer Rascoff. The company that reveals online the value of every home encourages openness and sharing in its own offices through an open floor plan, so that even Rascoff is always available for ideas and queries. Work can be done…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Jane Park
Jane Park Cofounder & CEO, Julep From her time as an executive at Starbucks, Jane Park clearly learned a thing or two about creating a resonant lifestyle brand. The nail care business she cofounded, Julep Beauty, has developed a fiercely loyal following of more than 150,000 women through salons, retail partnerships and a robust online…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: John Oppenheimer
John Oppenheimer Founder & CEO, Columbia Hospitality When John Oppenheimer boldly put in his 1995 bid to operate the Port of Seattles new Bell Harbor International Conference Center, he did so despite never having run a facility before. But as the founder of five hospitality businesses, he had been a customer in 28 countries. Nobody…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Frank Pelzer
Frank Pelzer Chief Financial Officer, Concur Technologies By the time Frank Pelzer joined Concur Technologies four years ago, he had already been closely involved with the company. As a director in the Software Investment Banking Group of Deutsche Bank, Pelzer had covered the expense-report-tracking company since its founding by Steve Singh, Rajeev Singh and Mike…
The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Jessie Woolley-Wilson
Jessie Woolley-Wilson Chair, President & CEO, DreamBox Learning In her four years at DreamBox Learning, Jessie Woolley-Wilson has proven herself an evangelist for improving learning comprehension and has helped spread the companys personalized instruction systems to classrooms throughout the United States and Canada. DreamBox Learnings tutoring software decides the ideal next lesson to present, based…