Executive Excellence Awards
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Governance Award
Board of Directors, Alaska Air Group
Governing a company is different from running one, notes Alaska Air Group board member Phyllis J. Campbell. An effective board asks the right questions, and one thats diverse makes that possibility more likely. Its sometimes messier, Campbell says of the gender and racial mix of Alaskas board. We dont always agree, by definition. Thats what…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: The List
A summary of this year's honorees.
Welcome to the fifth installment of Seattle Business magazines annual celebration of outstanding achievement in the C-suite. The Executive Excellence Awards recognize CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CTOs, executive directors and other inspirational leaders for modeling exemplary behavior in the day-to-day operation of complex corporate ecosystems as well as in the larger context of providing a moral…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Tucker Moodey
President, eCommerce Platform, Expedia Inc.
In Tucker Moodeys view, its comfortable to collaborate among people who share the same skills but more successful when you work across fields. Thats the insight he brought to leading Expedias eCommerce Platform, which supports a growing portfolio of online travel brands. Moodeys two years in that role have required integrating some of Expedias largest…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: John J. Legere
President and CEO, T-Mobile US
T-Mobiles CEO doesnt mince words, and when John Legere took the helm in 2012, he didnt make a lot of friends. At an early press conference, he vowed to redefine a stupid, broken and arrogant industry. It might have sounded like an empty boast at the time. Legere had taken over a weak, fourth-place wireless…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Scott Porad
CTO, Rover.com
When Scott Porad joined Rover.com to run the technical infrastructure that matched dog owners with providers of pet sitting and pet walking services, he thought it would be familiar. He had already built many e-commerce sites with internet pioneers like Starwave, Drugstore.com and Cheezburger Network. But keeping dog owners happy was nothing like dispensing online…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Darryl Rawlings
CEO, Trupanion
While most executives find success through building relationships, Darryl Rawlings prospers by redefining them. His company, Trupanion, offers to make insuring your pet more like buying health insurance for your family, providing comprehensive value for the life of the animal. Spurred by his own boyhood trauma of losing a beloved dog to a treatable but…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Benson Porter
President & CEO, BECU
Unlike many financial leaders after the banking crisis, incoming CEO Benson Porter had to manage expansion. In 2012, BECU, formerly the Boeing Employees Credit Union, was nearing $10 billion in assets, a size that would trigger new regulatory requirements, along with compliance to reforms. Porter, once an EVP at Washington Mutual, had seen others stumble….
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Governance Award
Board of Directors, Alaska Air Group
Governing a company is different from running one, notes Alaska Air Group board member Phyllis J. Campbell. An effective board asks the right questions, and one thats diverse makes that possibility more likely. Its sometimes messier, Campbell says of the gender and racial mix of Alaskas board. We dont always agree, by definition. Thats what…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Budd Gould
Founder and President, Anthonys Restaurants
Staying close to home has worked pretty well for Budd Gould, who founded his first restaurant in Bellevue in 1969. That steak and lobster house, The Fox, isnt around anymore, but his third restaurant, Anthonys Home Port in Kirkland, has grown into a popular seafood destination with 29 locations in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Its…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Karen Lee
CEO, Pioneer Human Services
Discipline and persistence, traits that help Pioneer Human Services clients build productive lives while bearing a criminal history, come naturally to CEO Karen Lee, a graduate of the United States Military Academy. More significant to her, though, were West Points values of sacrifice and service, or helping people and helping society. That mission led the…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Ardine Williams
VP of Talent Acquisition, Amazon Web Services
When Ardine Williams was hired to recruit the people who would help build out Amazons Web Services division, she didnt have to think too hard about an underrecognized source for talent. She had struggled herself once, as a former captain in the U.S. Army Signal Corps trying to reenter the civilian workforce. In the military,…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Stein Kruse
CEO, Holland America Group
He may be at the helm, but Stein Kruse feels more like a steward of the 143-year-old cruise ship franchise. Im here on a semi-temporary basis, he says with perspective, aiming to take over something good, make it better and hand it over to somebody else. That modesty belies his lengthy tenure with Holland America…
The 2017 Executive Excellence Awards: Ada M. Healey
Vice president, Vulcan Real Estate
Its not hard to see the impact Ada Healey has had on Seattle in the past 15 years. Just take a stroll down Westlake Avenue or Mercer Street in the heart of South Lake Union. As the director of all real estate investment activities for Paul Allens Vulcan Inc., Healey has helped drive that neighborhoods…