Client Kudos: Bob Weiler Named CEO of the Year

On Wednesday evening, the Mass Technology Leadership Council hosted its annual awards event celebrating the companies and leaders who best exemplify leadership and excellence in business and technology. We felt honored to have two client CEOs -- Bob Weiler of Phase Forward and Todd Loofbourrow of Authoria -- in the running for CEO of the Year. (Other notable finalists in the CEO category included John Anderson/PeopleCube, Art Papas/Bullhorn, Paul Sagan/Akamai and Chris Stone/StreamServe.)

When the moment of truth came, it was Bob Weiler whose photo was being snapped with the award in hand. Here's our press release.

Before the ceremonies started that evening, I was chatting with the very successful CEO of a local company who commented, "I used to work for Bob, and he's the best boss I ever had."

That just about sums it up. If you've ever had the pleasure of working with Bob, you know he's the kind of guy who goes out of his way to say "thank you" to every member of our team when we have a good hit. He's noted for his egalitarianism, his sense of humor, his command of the market -- and like every good CEO -- for making and owning the hard decisions when necessary.

This terrific award recognizes Bob's long and successful career leading local companies. For most of his run, Bob led companies targeting enterprise IT customers and technology consumers -- firms like McCormack & Dodge (my alma mater), Lotus, Eastman Software and Giga -- the research firm. In 2002, he made the move to Phase Forward, which targets customers in the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device markets. In 2004, he took the company public, making it the only Mass. software company to go public that year. That says something about Bob's success in making the transition to the life sciences market in short order. And while the lawyers won't let me proclaim that Phase Forward is the leader in its market, many financial analysts certainly would.

Our Red Sox hats are off to Bob. Warmest congratulations from your CHEN PR team.

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You can read more about the other awards in Mass High Tech's article here.