Distinguished Achievement Award

Bernard Gordon

Who he is: For technology and business executives, Bernard Gordon is one of those people who needs no introduction. The company created the world’s first solid-state X-ray generator, and imaging technology has been a part of what Gordon has been focused on ever since. Analogic has been involved in almost all types of analog-to-digital signal conversion, from ultrasound to digital imaging for laser printers to the first CT scanner for use in airport luggage screening.

The early years: The man who has helped drive innovation for decades started out as an introverted nerd in Springfield, fascinated with radios and engineering, and getting regularly beaten up “by the Irish kids.” With engineer-like precision, Gordon sought to solve the problem by turning to an uncle who was a physical instructor in the Army and who taught him how to fight. The instructions took so well that from junior high through his service in the U.S. Navy, Gordon was a competitive boxer.

Track record: In addition to co-founding EPSCO Inc., Analogic Corp., NeuroLogica Corp. and Photo Diagnostic Systems Inc., Gordon holds patents as the inventor of technologies such as the high-speed analog-to-digital converter, the instant imaging computer-aided tomography scanner, Digital Doppler radar, the fetal monitor and the first airport luggage bomb-detection device. Gordon placed all of his shares in Analogic in a charitable trust that donates money as it sells shares. It is estimated that by the time the shares run out, the trust will have given away approximately $300 million. Recipients include MIT, Tufts University, Northeastern University, Salem State University, the Museum of Science Boston and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Education: Bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, MIT.

What makes him tick: “I was always sort of an introverted kid who would rather build something — a radio or a dog house. I always wanted to be an engineer as far back as I can remember. I went to school in Springfield and in junior high school we had a course in radio.”

On managers versus leaders: “Generally a leader is getting people to do things that they would not otherwise do. This in turn relates to the education of engineers, which I have been heavily involved in for the last decade or so. When you are dealing with creative engineers they are more likely than not to be somewhat introverted — self conscious, trying to prove themselves but they can be relatively shy about it. The leader has to take the risk off the back of the other engineers, knowing full well that they can do the job better than he can.”

What people don’t know: “Professor (William) Radford made a bet with me that I couldn’t build a TV station at MIT and get it on the air before WBZ got on the air. I put together a little team to help me. One of them was Amar Bose and the other was Arch Luther, who later became the vice president of engineering for RCA Labs. The three of us built a station and had it working on May Day in 1948.”

On his first encounter with EPSCO co-founder Joe Davis: “I met him on a ship in the North Atlantic. We were both in the Navy, we were reserve officers. I was literally throwing up over the side when I met Joe Davis. Turned out he lived in Concord and I did. We swept out his basement and that’s where we started EPSCO.”

BY RODNEY H. BROWN, News Editor

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Eric Bailey on Bernard Gordon

Eric Bailey is co-founder, with Gordon, and CEO of NeuroLogica Corp., a Danvers maker of portable computed tomography scanners. Bailey had been working on guidance systems, and Gordon brought him to work on developing the first multi-slice CT system. He went on to work on other medical and security scanners for Analogic. When Gordon announced his retirement from Analogic, Bailey saw it as a good opportunity to launch his own startup, focusing on brain imaging technology. Gordon came on board as the company’s initial backer and co-founder.

What drives him: “I’ve never seen anybody love engineering as much as him. He just absolutely loves it, and he loves to practice it. You hear that term R&D and he really likes the development. He likes to build something society needs even before it knows it needs it. One example of that is the fetal monitor. He developed the fetal monitor in 1957. That has driven him over and over again. Now, in the later part of life, I think he also wants to teach others, particularly kids in school, how to do that.”

His greatest assets: “He’s got a brilliant engineering mind but more so than that — there are a lot of brilliant engineers — but he is a leader, He learned that in the Navy. He leads companies like one would lead troops into battle, he leads a company like he led a destroyer group in World War II. A lot of people today are managers, they are not leaders. The guy’s phenomenal -— he comes to work here at least three or four days a week. At 85 years old he has an energy that some 25 years old would find exhausting..”

The best part about working with him: “The biggest thing for me is the business advice on how to run a startup company. If you jump out of an airplane with Bernie there is no fear because he knows how to build a parachute on the way down. Bernie is like a father to me. I think the world of the guy.”

If he was doing something else: “Nothing, other than if the Navy called him back. The Citadel has just made him an honorary member of the South Carolina militia. At a moment’s notice he would go serve his country.”

Distinguished Achievement Award

Ray Stata

Education: Bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, MIT.

Track record: Led Analog Devices to a market cap near $10 billion. He’s also the founder of Stata Venture Partners, a vehicle for his private investments in 30 to 40 companies, most of them early-stage startups. In 1997, his donation supported the construction of MIT’s Ray and Maria Stata Center, designed by architect Frank Gehry. He’s on MIT’s Executive Committee, and is chairman of the Visiting Committee of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He is co-founder and was the first president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council, where he co-chairs the Massachusetts STEM Collaborative.

How he got here: “I was brought up in farm country outside of Philadelphia, and worked in an environment of farmers. There’s a certain attitude toward the world that grows out of that kind of occupation. There’s nobody to turn to. There’s no boss some place who provides the money and the advice. You’ve got to figure it out on your own. The self-employed farmers are really entrepreneurs. They have to learn to fend for themselves.”

What makes him tick: “I have a particularly strong aversion to authority. I’ve found that a lot of creative and talented people have kindredship in that. We have recruited and hired a lot of entrepreneurs at Analog Devices who think the way I think about that. This changing of the world and finding new opportunities has always been the most interesting part of Analog’s development. When I stepped down as CEO and had more time, I became an (angel investor) to help other entrepreneurial people achieve, and to contribute to their doing that, just as I had done at Analog.”

On maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit in an established company: “Innovation drives success. You can’t have innovation without great innovators. You have to create and maintain an environment where people will have the opportunity and encouragement to take risks and try new things. It’s been the same all the way along. It’s still the case today. We have to keep reminding the company of our strategy: innovation is the thing we seek. If we do that well we succeed. If we don’t we fail.”

What people don’t know: “Professor (William) Radford made a bet with me that I couldn’t build a TV station at MIT and get it on the air before WBZ got on the air. I put together a little team to help me. One of them was Amar Bose and the other was Arch Luther, who later became the vice president of engineering for RCA Labs. The three of us built a station and had it working on May Day in 1948.”

On business advocacy for education: “For 20 years, it’s been kind of beating your head against a wall. Nobody would be interested or concerned. Now all of a sudden the clouds have lifted a bit. All of this I think because (President Barack) Obama has shown a real interest in improving schools, particularly in the cities. (Obama’s) Race to the Top program — that’s an area now where I’m optimistic after working for 20 or 30 years with virtually no results. This is an area where I think business leaders have to jump into that and make it clear just how important our public education system is.”

BY GALEN MOORE, Reporter

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Eric Giler on Ray Stata

Eric Giler, a 2009 Mass High Tech All-Star, founded and led Brooktrout Technology Inc., and viewed Stata’s long-lived leadership of Analog as an ideal. Since Brooktrout was taken private in 2005, he’s been CEO of two companies — Groove Mobile, and now WiTricity Corp., making wireless battery charging systems, where Stata Venture Partners is an investor. Over Giler’s 30-year high-tech career, Stata has been a help to him, he said, in an eclectic list of crossroads and encounters.

As an inspiration: “There are very few high-tech founders of businesses that have grown businesses from zero to very large companies. Ray is one of them. When I go back and say, ‘How did he influence me?’ — I believed from an early day that it was possible to start a business and build a large business and run it as well.”

As counselor: “Fast forward a few years: Brooktrout did very well. It got VC funding. It went public in 1992. I continued to run it for close to 20 years. And I got a call from Ray one day. Ray said, ‘I have an idea for you that you might be interested in at Brooktrout.’ Ray had an investment in India. He suggested it was something we might be interested in purchasing or licensing because it would position us competitively. I went in there thinking, how can he know what our business does? And he got it exactly right. We ended up buying the technology for exactly the reasons he suggested.”

As career advisor: “In 2005 Brooktrout went private, and I found myself — as oftentimes happens — out looking for what to do with my life. I called Ray and said, ‘Can I come talk to you?’ He immediately sent me over to the venture mentoring service at MIT. I went into this VC-backed company Groove Mobile for the next few years.”

As a VC: “You can imagine now another couple of years forward, to 2008 when I got the phone call about WiTricity. Ray had backed (founder) Marin Soljačić at MIT and did the original funding with Stata Venture Partners and his partner in that, Lee Barbieri. If Ray thinks something is a good idea for you to do, I would take his advice 100 percent of the time.”

Software

Aron J. Ain

Who he is: CEO of workforce management software developer Kronos Inc.

Track record: He’s worked 32 years at Kronos, helping the company grow from a startup with fewer than 10 employees to a global firm with more than 3,100 employees.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics and government, Hamilton College

How he got here: When Ain was in college, his brother Mark had founded Kronos and talked him into working there after graduation. “I thought I was going to go to law school. I had planned (Kronos) to be a first job. I ended up liking it a lot and so there was never any reason to leave. People use our products and like it, and that makes me feel good.”

On growing up with a startup: “When we started, we were all young and focused on building the organization and figuring out how we were going to do that. We all were learning as we were going along. We were not only starting a company, we were inventing a product.” With a small team when he started, Ain took on a range of non-technical responsibilities, including sales, customer service and marketing. He even knocked on doors in Brighton, giving away Kronos products for free. “Everyone knew everyone who worked at the company. I don’t know everyone anymore. Everyone I see, I try to know who they are.”

Favorite accomplishment: “We’ve created an environment at Kronos where people stay here for a long time — motivated, smart people. The longer people stay here, the better they get at their job. The better ideas they introduce, the better products we create.”

What makes him tick: “Some people plan every step of their life. I take one step at a time.’ And, that philosophy applies to his plans for the future. ‘I look forward to running away from my calendar — just not being subject to my calendar.”

On early influences: “My parents were inspiring because they were great parents. My mother graduated high school at 14 and practiced law till 83. My dad had a local small business. Being a good parent was more important — they taught their five children those values.”

On what he might do besides running a software company: “Be a doctor. I love helping people. I love bringing order to chaos. I love taking things that other people think are messed up and making it work. I can’t imagine anything that we couldn’t figure out.”

BY MICHELLE LANG, Associate Editor – Digital

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Paul Lacy on Aron Ain

Paul Lacy is the former president and chief administrative officer of Kronos and previously worked as CFO of the company.

Ain’s greatest asset:
“His ability to quickly understand complex issues in a wide range of areas. He can quickly size up the essence of an issue by asking probing questions, offer advice and guidance and make decisions.”

What drives him:
“I think it’s his curiosity. He’s interested in just about everything!”

working with Ain:
“It's really fun! He’s got so much energy it’s hard to keep up with him. He likes a good laugh and he’s serious when he needs to be. He will be in your shorts if you don’t do a good job, but will leave you alone if you prove yourself.”

Something not everyone knows about him:
“He’s a Yankees fan!”

Entrepreneurship

Shawn Broderick

Who he is: Executive director, TechStars Boston; CEO, executive chairman, play140; CEO, TrustPlus

Education: Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Brandeis University.

Unique starts: The inspiration for Broderick’s first startup came from a weekend in Vermont playing Magic: The Gathering with friends. For months, he wondered how he could replicate Magic’s economic business model online, where profits would be free from physical limitations. That question would eventually evolve into the online gaming company Genetic Anomalies.

Geek pride: Broderick became fascinated with computers in junior high school, plugging code into a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1. “I was your typical geek student in high school. I just thought it was a fun way to play games. Code was fun.”

Beginnings: “I went to college wanting to be a physicist — thank you, Carl Sagan — but couldn’t hack the math and fell into computer science, which I’d basically already had been doing for more than a decade. The entrepreneurship started early, too. I came up in the era of Microsoft and Apple and really dug what they were doing, how they were changing the world. That was exciting!”

Journey mentality: “I’m a firm believer that life is a journey. You can steer the ship most of the time, but not all the time. I don’t have a ‘five year plan’ for where I’m going, but I know for sure it’s going be a blast!”

What not to do: “I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs #@*% up the HR process. They hire poorly. They fire poorly. They manage poorly. They don’t motivate their people intelligently. It’s a fairly common mistake with first-timers and with engineers-as-CEO. Classic mistakes that get repeated over and over again (sadly, ad infinitum). This is easily the quickest, not illegal, way to kill a company.”

Advice from the frontlines: “Know what you don’t know. Arrogance is the easiest way to fail.”

Startup Kryptonite: “In my experience, the Kryptonite of tech startups is failing on the customer development front. Building *&%$ is one thing. Building *&%$ that customers love is a whole other thing. It’s painfully easy to skip that process and screw it up. Cool product plus no gleeful customers = FA1L.”

Future goals: “Bother the heck out of my children. Keep working with the 2009 and 2010 Boston TechStars companies. Select and accelerate a superb class of 2011 Boston TechStars companies in the spring. Grow play140 from its early seed stage to the next kick-ass level! Wrap up my first professoring gig this winter. Finish the guitar I’ve been trying to build now for nearly two years.”

BY LYNETTE F. CORNELL, Assistant Web Editor

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Will Herman on Shawn Broderick

Entrepreneur Will Herman was the first investor in Genetic Anomalies.

What makes him unique:
“Shawn has a unique mix of experience and wisdom combined with a first-time entrepreneur’s spirit and ignorance of the possibility of failure. It’s just a killer combination when it comes to developing and starting companies.”

Shawn in five words:
“Let’s say smart, cool, strong, easy-going, broad, very broad, actually.”

Something people might not know about him:
“He’s a man of a thousand interests and well-versed in many of them. He’s really a tremendously broad guy and a big family guy as well.”

Biotech

Abbie Celniker

Who she is: As the CEO of Taligen Therapeutics, Celniker oversees a company developing targeted therapies to treat inflammatory and immune diseases. The company has five early stage drug candidates to treat illnesses including asthma and rheumatoid arthritis. The company has raised $70 million in venture capital funding.

Track record: Celniker has more than 20 years of experience in building biologics-focused businesses. Prior to joining Taligen, Celniker was head of biologics at Novartis. She has also held research and development leadership roles with Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Wyeth BioPharma (Genetics Institute) and Genentech.

Education: Bachelor of science degree in biology, University of Arizona; and Ph.D. in molecular biology, University of California at San Diego.

What makes her tick: “We have to make therapies more effective, cheaper and easier to deliver. These are our challenges. How do we make this work in different settings, in the third world?”

Accomplishments: “I successfully launched two children to college. My son goes to UC San Diego and my daughter goes to San Diego State. The fact that I was able to do that, and build an amazing career and meet wonderful people and continue to learn every day is probably my biggest accomplishment. And, just in the last two years, we’ve been able to put this team together (at Taligen) and take on a very complex regulatory and economic environment and move forward.”

Outside of work: “I was in the sixth grade, in Mrs. Crawford’s class — I remember her name — and it was the first time we were doing a lab and not book learning. Then I knew I wanted to be in science. My father was a physician, so I always had a lot of exposure to the clinical side of things. Then I went to a research-focused university, where I was encouraged to do research, and I fell in love with asking questions and designing studies to answer those questions. And if you think about unanswered medical questions, every time you answer five questions, 25 more pop up.”

What she’ll do when she retires: “My fantasy job would be to teach in a science/business interface environment. I’d love to mentor people and help train the next generation of entrepreneurs.”

BY JULIE M. DONNELLY, Reporter

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Sue Nemetz on Abbie Celniker

Sue Nemetz has known Abbie Celniker for eight years, since the two were senior executives at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and now runs the consulting firm Nemetz Group.

Her greatest strength:
“It is difficult to name the ‘greatest,’ however, I would say that she applies many of the same important principles from her scientific roots to evolution as a leader. She is a curious learner, enthusiastically seeks feedback and applies the insight gained to better herself and her team. She also has a great sense of humor.”

Something not everyone knows:
“She recently picked up rowing on the Charles at the crack of dawn, and when not doing that walks her two dogs before most of us have our first cup of coffee.”

If she had a weakness:
”Her house is always spotless.”

Med Devices

Frederic Chereau

Who he is: As CEO for Pervasis Therapeutics Inc., Frederick Chereau navigates the brave new world of drug-device combination therapies. The company develops cell-based therapies that induce tissue repair and regeneration, and the company’s lead development programs are focused on two areas of vascular disease: improving arteriovenous access procedures for hemodialysis patients, and reducing the longer-term problems that limit the success of angioplasty or stent implants for peripheral arterial disease.

Track record: Prior to becoming CEO of Pervasis in 2008, Chereau was the vice president and general manager of Genzyme Cardiovascular, a business unit of Genzyme Corp. There, he worked both on commercializing a Genzyme cholesterol drug, called Cholestagel, and on developing a gene therapy program in peripheral arterial disease. He worked in France for Genzyme from 1999 to 2005, and has been working in Cambridge since then. In his early career, Chereau worked for a French medical device retail company.

Education: Bachelor of science in physics from Paris University; graduate management degree from La Rochelle Business School and an MBA from INSEAD.

What drives him: “It gives me a lot of satisfaction to know I can contribute to making other people’s lives better. After La Rochelle (management master’s program), my father had a heart attack. I spent a lot of time taking care of him. He survived. That is something that really drew me to health care because, by training, I was a physicist. I worked for a few years in medical devices and then I moved to biotech because there was more innovation there. So it’s a little ironic that many people consider us a device company. I consider Pervasis to be more of a biotech company.”

Biggest achievement: “When I was at Genzyme I grew the cardiovascular department, and I did a big deal in 2008, acquiring a product from Isis Pharmaceuticals, called mipomersen. I didn’t do everything my way. I worked with my team and I convinced them that it was a good acquisition.”

What else he might have done: “When I was young, one thing I actually wanted to do was to be a sales rep for (French plane manufacturer) Airbus. One thing I’m very interested in now is modern interior design, including 1970’s Scandinavian design. So if I had to re-do my career, maybe I would be an interior designer.”

What he’d like his legacy to be: “I’ve spent 10 years doing cell therapy. I’d like to be able to tell my grandchildren that I was part of the story of cell therapy in some way, that I added to the research in this area addressing unmet medical needs.”

BY JULIE M. DONNELLY, Reporter

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Tom Mathers on Frederic Chereau

CEO of Cambridge-based biotech company Peptimmune Inc., Mathers has known Frederic Chereau for many years, having served as his boss when the two worked at Genzyme Corp.

Greatest strength:
“He’s a charismatic guy. His ability to disarm people in personal and professional situations really sets him apart. I wouldn’t call it French charm, that might be giving him too much credit. But he has a salesman’s luminous personality.”

Something people don't know:
“Like a lot of French people, he will eat anything, and he has a special palate for rognons – sheep’s kidneys. Also, one of his most prized possessions is a very modern glass and metal coffee table that he made.”

A weakness:
“His English. Once he is in France for 24 hours, his English becomes completely unintelligible. We joke about it all the time.”

Genetics

George Church

Who he is: George Church is co-founder of Knome Inc., a commercial lab that provides whole genome sequencing and interpretation solutions to researchers and families seeking to understand the genetic underpinnings of disease. He is also a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Computational Genetics.

Other ventures: Co-founder and scientific advisor to Joule Unlimited Inc., which produces renewable fuels from sunlight and waste CO2, and Goodstart Genetics Inc., a startup that provides DNA sequencing technology to physicians. He also founded the Personal Genome Project, which is dedicated to developing personal genomics technology and best practices.

Education: Undergraduate degree from Duke University in chemistry and zoology. He earned a Harvard Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology after admittedly flunking out of Duke University’s philosophy doctorate program in 1976.

Route to major breakthroughs: “As a teenager at Duke, I typed DNA sequences into the computer and I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to do that for every person? Of course, I was naive back then, but now, that might actually happen.” While working as a research scientist at Biogen Inc. in 1984, he helped initiate the Human Genome Project and later helped found the Stanford, MIT and Waltham Genome Centers. He went on to invent the broadly applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags, homologous recombination methods and array DNA synthesizers.

He founded Knome in 2007 as a lab for individuals interested in obtaining sequence data that could be used to learn about the probability of developing certain diseases. In the early days, genome sequencing cost around $350,000 due to the price of equipment, reagents and the time involved (typically over three weeks). But the rich and the curious became investors in sequencing technologies, which could be useful not only in identifying disease precursors but also in finding ways to prevent disease.

On genomics today: Costs are around $10,000, according to reports, but Church wants more people to have access to genetic sequencing. “Part of what has allowed us to do personal genomics is bringing down costs.”

His mission: To help make low-cost genomic diagnostics, “green” chemistry and multi-virus resistance broadly available.

Proudest accomplishment: “Next-generation reading and writing genomes.”

Favorite non-work related activities: Spending time with his 19-year-old daughter and swimming with Koi fish.

BY BRIDGET BOTHELO, Special to Mass High Tech

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Noubar Afeyan on George Church

Noubar Afeyan is a founder and chairman of Joule Unlimited.

What makes him tick:
“Professor George Church combines scientific excellence with an orientation toward the translation of science into commercial applications. At the same time, he anticipates and addresses the diverse societal implications of his cutting edge research in an exemplary way. True to form for a serious scientist, he shuns publicity stunts but remains a strong communicator of complex scientific issues to the public. Beyond his brilliance and creativity, his humility as well as gentle, collaborative style make him an ideal partner for the many hundred active nodes in his professional network of which I am proud to be one.”

Web

Neal Creighton

Who he is: As co-founder and CEO of social marketing tools provider RatePoint Inc., it is logical to assume that Neal Creighton knows that “reputation is everything” as the company’s slogan puts it. But his exposure to that concept goes all the way back to his childhood. Creighton grew up in a military family, traveling the world as his U.S. Army general father was put in command of base after base. That helped him decide on West Point for his college career, where reputation is at the very core of daily life, exemplified in the words engraved right into the stone walkway the cadets walk across every day — “Duty, Honor, Country.” The idea of having a trustworthy identity is also reflected in Creighton’s first startup GeoTrust Inc., which he led as CEO through its sale for $125 million to VeriSign Inc. in September 2006. GeoTrust supplied online certificates for web security so an operating system could trust the web software it was running.

Track record: Before the VeriSign sale was completed, Creighton helped spin out GeoTrust’s identity verification services operations as ChosenSecurity Inc. Earlier this year, ChosenSecurity was acquired by encryption firm PGP Corp. after raising $14.5 million. Creighton sits on the board of PGP.

Education: Bachelor’s degree, United States Military Academy at West Point; JD and MBA, Northwestern University.

What makes him tick: “I love getting up and coming to work. I love Mondays because I get to come in, and what drives me is that in startups you are always going through one phase or another. I look forward to those challenges and often it’s a mystery. It’s almost like art — it is art. There’s science involved in business, but it’s like you are creating this masterpiece where the pieces can fit in a bunch of different ways and when you get it right, it’s beautiful.”

How he got here: “I spent five years in the military after West Point. We had the first Gulf War. I had been a platoon leader in a unit that had gone pretty deeply into Iraq. When I was able to settle down, when we had come back from there, I made the decision I was going to go try something new. My father was a West Pointer and his father was Army Air Corps. I started thinking about how I wanted to define my life, and when I looked at my military career, I realized I had to be able to go home every day and be comfortable that I might not be a general officer like my father.”

What people don’t know: “My wife is Korean American, so my kids go to Korean school on Saturday. We both feel like language is very important for the kids. We’ve taken them to Korea twice -— they’ve met their extended family. The Korean culture is a very rich culture, and I have become a bit of an expert in Korean history.”

BY RODNEY H. BROWN, News Editor

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Matt Engel on Neal Creighton

Matt Engel from Prism VentureWorks is a member of the technology team. He left his role as an analyst at Prism to work with Creighton at GeoTrust before returning to Prism.

What drives Creighton:
“He’s a demanding guy and expects excellence from his team. If you are not up for it, it just isn’t going to work out. The first 100 people in a company can’t hide — you all have to excel.”

His greatest assets:
“The one thing that is fantastic about Neil is that he is a visionary CEO who sees about 18 months out.”

Telecommunications

Donna Cupelo

Who she is: Region president, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Verizon Corp.; co-chair of the IT Consortium; board member of at least a half-dozen industry and community groups.

Education: Bachelor of science degree from Providence College; MBA from Babson College.

Favorite accomplishment: “I think the development of people in the parent company. I’ve had the good fortune for the past 30 years to work with some very talented folks of various ages and genders and diversity, and working with them to succeed to the next level has been my biggest accomplishment when I look back at some of the accomplishments that they have achieved themselves over the years.”

What makes her successful: “Long ago, I learned that it is critical to build sound relationships and establish credibility.”

Mentor: “It’s Wayne Budd. I had the opportunity to work for him when we were part of the Nynex team. He just is a very focused leader who is very cognizant of the impact of corporations’ roles in the community and roles as far as leadership.”

How someone would define her management style: “I think they would say that I’m a decisive leader who is very collaborative and willing to learn and willing to lead.”

If she showed someone from 1978 today's telecome environment: “They would be amazed at the transformation... and at the type of people that we have been able to nurture in this industry who have come up with creations like you see on the 495 belt with EMC, the concept of storage and the magnitude of that and the role that technology plays in business.”

The downside: “The pace of change has been so fast that it is difficult at times for people to keep up with all these changes...Just look at the number of devices.”

Work with the community: “The reward is seeing a group of diverse kids who have come in to do job sharing and job shadowing through the Private Industry Council, and end up as an engineer for Verizon or Raytheon. It’s amazing to see these kids transform themselves from just learning about a different vocation and then accomplishing it.”

Advice to today’s college kids: “Take every opportunity to interact with your community because we are looking for the leaders of tomorrow who are socially conscious. I would say that no matter what folks’ areas of interest are, they need to understand the impact of technology, whether it is art, history or teaching...and they have to follow their dreams."

BY JAMES M. CONNOLLY, Editor

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Jack Wilson on Donna Cupelo

UMass President Jack Wilson credits Cupelo with being the driving force behind the state’s effort to revive and grow its IT cluster, including the planned data center in Holyoke.

Her recent accomplishment:
“Her ability to get the state to focus on the IT industry, that is something that wouldn’t have happened without her. She said, ‘Hey, you need to pay attention to this. It’s critical.’”

What makes her tick:
“Donna is an amazing combination with a bright focus. She’s an articulate, intense person, and a genuinely nice person who is always thinking about how she can help. It’s more than what you see with the usual person who just wants to help. She has the intelligence, intensity and skill set to make things happen.”

Mobile

Walt Doyle

Who he is: CEO of Boston-based Where Inc., a location-based search and recommendation service used by more than 50 million users to locate places and information such as weather, news and restaurant reviews from wherever they are.

Background: Doyle is a self-taught techie. He earned a degree in history and economics at Emory College in Atlanta.

Track records: The Boston native’s career began when he hopped on a plane to Hong Kong in search of his first job out of college in 1991. “The U.S. job market was tough, and there were plenty of opportunities in Hong Kong, so it seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do... My thought process is, take every opportunity to immerse yourself in a new environment; expose yourself as far in advance to as many experiences and as much as you can.” That philosophy earned him a job at Dow Jones in Hong Kong, and over the past 15 years, Doyle has worked in executive positions for consumer-facing media services that use emerging technologies, including Game Spot, early VoIP companies and MapQuest.

Forward thinking: While working with those progressive companies, Doyle recognized the opportunity for delivering services to mobile devices, which led him to Where. “In the startup world, you can’t think of where things are now but of where they will be, and you have to build a big trough for the coming wave to absorb as much of the wave as you can when it comes in.”

His startup: Where started out in 2004 as uLocate Communications Inc., in the days before there was an app for everything, so getting the business off the ground involved a lot of trial and error. But once it aligned its business model and vision, things fell into place. “There are $120 billion spent on local advertising every year in North America, and we expected a share shift to mobile devices, because people are always on their devices. The shift is starting to happen now.”

Proudest professional accomplishment: Living at the bleeding edge of innovation and creating services that delight consumers. “I’m proud to have had that vantage.”

Goals: “We want Boston to remain at the forefront of mobile development, so we consider it part of our job to create stewards of talent from the local universities. Our goal is also to be a large, unique media company, so we want to continue to grow.” (Where grew from 30 employees at the start of the year to 70 in September and they may add 30 more by year end).

Outside of work: Doyle enjoys outdoor activities with his wife and children, including fishing and almost any type of exercise.

BY BRIDGET BOTHELO, Special to Mass High Tech

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Jerry King on Walt Doyle

Chief operating officer of Where, Jerry King has worked with Doyle since 2007. He said an ability to innovate and adapt in a young and fast-moving market is Doyle’s key to success.

On leadership:
“Walt leads the team by questioning assumptions and challenging the status quo every day. As a result, each of us comes to work thinking about what we can do better to win and win big.”

On inspiration:
“There are good reasons why Where is now a profitable and rapidly growing company, and Walt’s willingness to ‘lead by example’ is one of them. Walt lives to inspire the people around him to achieve beyond their own expectations.”

Energy

Tim Healy

Who he is: Tim Healy co-founded EnerNOC Inc. in 2001 and, as CEO, led the company through a $99 million IPO in 2007, and to its ascendancy as the U.S. leader in the energy management sector known as demand response.

Track record: Prior to EnerNOC, Healy co-founded Student Advantage, a Boston-based affinity marketing company, in the early 1990s. He left the company after a few years, and would go on to work at Merrill Lynch, International Fuel Cells (now UTC Fuel Cells), venture capital firm Commonwealth Capital Ventures and Northern Power Systems Inc. in Vermont.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in government and economics, Dartmouth College; MBA, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

What makes him tick: “I remember being pretty impacted as a 19 or 20 year old, when I got an opportunity to spend three or four weeks studying at the Cato Institute. I was reading about the way we are solving certain environmental issues in Africa and in other parts of the world, by taking some of the environmental resources that were being destroyed and having business leaders come in and show people that if you want to save this species of animal, you need to find a way to make it so that the species of animal is valued in the economic ecosystem for that region. That was pretty impactful to me, because finally I could see the tie between something I was passionate about and business and entrepreneurship. I think it still characterizes (my approach).”

On staying on as CEO as the company grew: “I think there was maybe once in EnerNOC’s history when I said, ‘Do I really have the desire as well as the skill set to take it to the next level?’ ... I was concerned about whether my desire to be entrepreneurial was consistent with the organization’s need for creating scale and for creating process, because entrepreneurship and process sometimes can be in conflict. It was when I was seeing an awful lot of process start to be introduced … that I started to say, ‘Am I going to be comfortable in this sort of environment and am I going to be the best suited for running this business?’ I did a little soul searching for a few weeks, and found that you can actually have both.”

On EnerNOC being a poster child for the state’s cleantech sector: “First of all, it is incredibly flattering and incredibly humbling ... It’s a stark contrast to where we were just five or six years ago, or even two or three years ago, for that matter. When I started my first company in Boston (Student Advantage), Boston kind of beat me up a little bit. That business never became profitable ... I just remember feeling like I was an incredibly small fish in an incredibly huge pond.”

BY KYLE ALSPACH, Reporter

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Scott Johnson on Tim Healy

Scott Johnson is a managing partner at New Atlantic Ventures in Cambridge.

On his negotiating skills:
“I wrote a first term sheet, and gave it to the guys right before Christmas 2002. It was a seed deal, and it was going to be pretty dilutive, as all seed deals are. He said, ‘No thank you,’ and went silent for two months. That’s Tim in a nutshell — he knows what he wants and goes after what he wants ... He’s a ferocious negotiator.”

On his success:
“The thing that really separates Tim and (president David Brewster) from so many entrepreneurs is that they are very execution-oriented. They deliver on what they say they’re going to do. They have this saying, ‘We do things differently at EnerNOC.’ That’s the thing that stands out. The revenue plan they showed me the very first day - they exceeded it. That never happens.”

Semiconductors

Robert LeFort

Who he is: Since 2006 he’s served as CEO of Ember Corp., where he has grown the company into the world’s top producer of ZigBee chips — the leading technology for the wireless communications that make the “smart” technologies work.

Track record: Prior to joining Ember, he was president of North American operations for semiconductor firm Infineon Technologies, a position he held from 2002 to 2006. Before that he ran the automotive electronics business for Infineon North America, and had also previously held positions at Delphi Automotive Systems, Analog Devices Inc. and Cherry Semiconductor Corp.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, University of Massachusetts, 1983; MBA, Boston University, 1990

On leaving Infineon for Ember: “I don’t mind big companies, I actually quite enjoy them. What caused me to leave was that the company was really on a cost-cutting mission for those years. It stopped being fun at the end of the day. I don’t mind cost-cutting temporarily to strengthen the business, but you have to have a plan to come out of a cost-cutting mode and to get back into a solid growth mode, and I didn’t see that part of the plan.”

On his adjustment to running a startup: “One of the guys (at the company) told me once, ‘When you started, you immediately jumped right in head first whether you knew what you were talking about or not, you just got up there and tried to help us move forward.’ I think he regrets saying that, but I took that as a compliment. That is my style. I’ll learn by doing. As a friend of mine used to say, ‘If you want more hits, get up to the plate more.’”

On whether Ember has fulfilled his hopes: “Personally, I’m very happy at Ember. I think we still have more to do to reach our potential. I have not fulfilled Ember’s vision, so to that extent I can’t say that my vision is fulfilled. But if you say, ‘Did I get what I came for, coming to Ember?’ Absolutely. ... We need to see this thing go mainstream. It’s well on its way, but it’s not there yet.”

On returning to his home state of Massachusetts to join Ember: “My parents are still living in the same house I was brought up in, in Waltham. It was a very nice opportunity to get back to them. That’s been really great — my family’s a very important part of my life … We have two daughters, one is in college and one is in high school. They definitely are the most interesting and exciting part of my life. No matter how good Ember gets, it’s always great talking to them.”

BY KYLE ALSPACH, Reporter

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Todd Hixon on Robert LeFort

Todd Hixon is co-founder and managing partner of New Atlantic Ventures in Cambridge.

What brought him to Ember:
“He’s a guy who likes to build things. What he’d built as the head of Infineon, I think he’d done what he could do in that job, and was looking for a new challenge.”

His major strengths:
“He is just a very seasoned sales and marketing guy ... He is a smart, capable guy, and we were looking for someone like him to take the business and scale it. Ember was maybe a $6 million company, and it’s grown about fivefold.”

On an early accomplishment at Ember:
“When he arrived, we had a major customer problem. Our largest customer at the time was thinking about switching to someone else. The guys before him had let the situation develop, but he went in there and turned it around.”

Community

Kiki Mills

Who she is: President, Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in international studies, American University.

In a nutshell: “I’m an evangelist. I help people understand the lay of the land.”

On people: Mills loves meeting people. “I spent countless hours over the years trying to get to know every person in the industry. The most rewarding part of my job is all the people I’ve met.”

Leading by example: “Being a success is a shared responsibility between the employee and the employer. I look to myself first to make sure that I have provided the right environment, tools and encouragement for my employees to succeed. If I’ve done that right, then I’ve done my job.”

Mentors: Mills credits former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Paul Joubert with teaching her how to simplify things and think on a different level. Yankee Group’s Emily Green granted her confidence in her ability and the importance of understanding people. Holland Mark’s Chris Colbert educated Mills in strategic thinking. MITX founder Michael Barron reinforced her decisions and made her feel valued.

Renewable energy: “What gets me up in the morning is helping people. I love building community. I love helping people. I get my energy from people.”

Young beginnings: “My mom loves to tell this story that up until preschool I was incredibly shy, did not like people very much and would never leave her side. She would literally have to drag me into preschool and I would just hang by myself and not talk to anyone. Then one day, I did a complete about face. As she got out of the car to walk (drag) me into school, I just looked at her and told her that I would walk in on my own. After that, she couldn’t get me to shut up!”

What people don’t know: “I tried out for cheerleading three years in a row and never made it.”

The future: Mills will be moving to San Francisco, where her fiancé recently found a job. Her initial to-do’s include exploring San Francisco, reading a lot of books and figuring out what she wants to do. First though, she said, “I’m going to be a dog mom and walk my dog every day.”

Advice to her successor: “Three things: one, be passionate — there’s so much to be excited about for MITX and for the region; two, be a good listener — people want to be heard; and three, care. I have always been humbled by how much people care about the organization, how much people help us and want us to succeed. Care even more for them, and you will be rewarded.”

BY LYNETTE F. CORNELL, Assistant Web Editor

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Emily Green on Kiki Mills

Yankee Group CEO Emily Green is vice chairman of MITX’s board of directors and has known Mills since 2001.

What people don’t know:
“She power walks to work and will sometimes arrive at a meeting breathless.”

Her personality:
“Whatever she tackles, she’s enthusiastic about. She’s a sponge for feedback.”

What she’s good at:
“What she does try, she’ll do well at.”

In a word:
“She is just completely unique.”

Health IT

Girish Kumar Navani

Who he is: Girish Kumar Navani is co-founder and CEO of electronic medical records and practice software maker eClinicalWorks Inc.

Education: Bachelor of science in engineering, Gujarat University (India); Master’s in engineering, Boston University

On founding eClinicalWorks: “I was looking for a niche. I wanted to write something on my own.” At a conference in Geneva, Navani heard how wireless networking would change industries, including the medical field. “It was alarming. Every form of communication in the health field was on paper... I was looking to write software that I would not just sell to another company. The fundamental fact hasn’t changed: I still want to keep the software, and I want eClinicalWorks to be a lifestyle business.”

As an engineer with communication skills: “I’ve always learned by observing. I used to get called in to present the technical side of presentations. I always felt I could present better than the sales guy. I finally said, ‘I think I can present both sides.’” At Aspen Technology, he got comfortable communicating with clients and with managing people. “Those opportunities in life give you the confidence you need to blend technology with business.”

Lesson learned: While moonlighting as a programmer, he made $10,000 writing software for one business, which he later realized was making multi-millions of dollars using his software. When he asked for more compensation in recognition of the work, he was told, “This is capitalism. You shouldn’t have sold your software.” “Next time I write software, I will not sell it. I’ll keep it … I’m glad I learned my lesson early on.”

Since then, he’s kept eClinicalWorks private and investor-free. “I think staying private and investor-free has been one big lever where we don’t get told by external investors what the return on investment needs to be. We define it.”

And Shah the author: Shah and HubSpot co-founder Brian Halligan wrote the newly released “Inbound Marketing: Get Found in Google, Blogs and Social Media.” In his usual writing routine of blogging at OnStartups.com he gets incremental, constant feedback. Not so with the book. “You’re off in a dark corner for months,” he said.

Philosophy: “I do believe that only the paranoid survive. I create stress even if there is none to be created. I don’t like the status quo... but if you don’t question what you’re doing, you might not survive.”

Mentors: “I learned a lot from my dad. He was a successful civil engineer in India, working for the railroads, building big bridges over rivers.” One day, his father pointed out a bridge that he built. “‘That will be around long after I’m gone,’ he said.”

Outside of work: “I am a kid when it comes to sports.” In addition to watching football and playing in a fantasy football league, he plays with the eClinicalWorks cricket team, which just won a New England tournament. Friday night is movie night with the family and Saturdays and Sundays are for doing activities with his son and daughter.

BY MICHELLE LANG, Associate Editor – Digital

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Sameer Bhat on Girish Kumar Navani

Sameer Bhat co-founded eClinicalWorks and now serves as vice president of sales.

His greatest asset:
“He has a great leadership quality. He believes in a team approach to solve problems, he can keep his team excited and motivated to achieve any goals. His desire to win with a positive energy keeps everyone around him very excited.”

If he wasn’t working at eClinicalWorks:
“He has always been an entrepreneur. He would have succeeded in any startup technology company … on a lighter note, he would have been a great standup comedian!”

Something not everyone knows about him:
“He is a great performer! It is a lot of fun to see him imitate other personalities.”

Internet

Panos Panay

Who he is: Panos Panay immigrated to the U.S. in 1991 and, a few years after graduating college in Boston, founded SonicBids Inc., an Internet company providing promotional services to musicians and bands. He co-founded Boston Young Entrepreneurs, an initiative to encourage young entrepreneurs; is chairman of the Berklee College of Music Presidential Advisory Council; and serves as a founding member of the board of Boston World Partnerships.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in music business, Berklee College of Music

Track record: Founded SonicBids at the age of 28 and bootstrapped it to profitability and $5 million in revenue before taking a dime of venture capital. SonicBids now has about 50 employees and provides online promotional services to about 275,000 bands.

What makes him tick: “I’ve always had this vision of SonicBids being the site that every band on the planet, no matter what language they sing in, what passport they carry, what their proficiency is, to use SonicBids as a means to go out and further their career. Not everybody wants to be a multi-million-dollar, world-renowned superstar. Most people are happy to earn a few dollars doing something they love.”

On Boston: “I find the city itself to be really vibrant and young. I love the people in Boston. I love the fact that it has a burgeoning arts scene. It’s sophisticated. It has great food. I’m not trying to sound like some big love fest of the city, but it kind of is. I would never stay in any city for 19 years if I didn’t absolutely love it.

“Im really proud when I travel the world and I give people my business card and they say, ‘Boston? Why Boston?’ And I think, ‘Yeah.’ I’m so proud that I’m in Boston and not Los Angeles or New York.”

How he got here: “From a fairly young age I wanted to be a guitarist. I came to Berklee (from native Cypress) and I had a culture shock, like maybe most kids who came to Berklee, especially if you came from a very small country like I did, where I thought I was the stuff and I quickly realized I didn’t have the stuff. I picked up the guitar after I heard Eddie Van Halen, and I quit playing the guitar after I heard Pat Metheney.”

Secret fantasy job: Automobile design. “Show any human being pictures of any car over, say, seven or eight different decades, and everybody will be able to tell you this is from the 30s, this is from the 40s, this is from the 60s, this is from the 90s. We all receive that stimuli but we don’t think about it.”

Hidden talent: Picking clothes for other people. “You rely on your instincts. You learn how to read people and connect with people — find their interests and commonalities. I think it’s what’s made me a good salesperson and a good entrepreneur."

BY GALEN MOORE, Reporter

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Don Gorder on Panos Panay

Don Gorder helped establish the music business major at Berklee College of Music. When a young Panos Panay realized he wasn’t going to be the next hair rock guitar god, he turned to Gorder for advice.

On Panay as a student:
“What I remember is he came to my office many, many times with lots and lots of questions. He was inquisitive and curious, and he wanted to know about the music business. I think all along he was formulating his view of where he fit into it. He was so bright and so curious that I really enjoyed having those conversations with him. After we got to know him as a student in the major, it was obvious that he had the other ingredients too. He seemed to have a natural savvy about business concepts.”

Hardware

Richard Scannell

Who he is: Richard Scannell, co-founder and senior vice president of corporate strategy and marketing for GlassHouse Technologies Inc., a data center infrastructure consultancy based in Framingham.

Education: Undergraduate degree in computer science from University College Cork in Ireland. Also educated through the “school of dumb mistakes” and by mentors.

Coming to America: Born and raised in Ireland, Scannell moved to the U.S. in 1994 with his wife and baby daughter to work as a senior IT Infrastructure manager at Motorola Inc. in Chicago. He was successful at Motorola not only for his IT skills, but for his business savvy. At 30, he was managing a $30 million IT budget and 160 people and could translate what the business side needed to what the IT side could provide. “I think I had always been a closet sales guy and didn’t know it, because I love being in front of customers.”

The route to Boston: During the dot-com bubble, Scannell left the safety of a big company. “At that time, everyone was involved with the Internet and making a bajillion dollars at it. I looked at them and figured, I work as hard and I’m just as smart, there’s no reason I can’t do the same. I’m just sitting on the wrong side of the desk.”

Unfortunately, he had zero knowledge about how to start his own company. “I was an inside IT guy my whole life, and none of my neighbors and friends knew anything about it either. ”

So, Scannell moved his family to Boston to be part of a tech sector that isn’t too far from Ireland. He took a job as COO of startup, UpSource, which provided outsourced CRM services, and was charged with relocating its call center from San Francisco to Cape Breton Island. “In the midst of all that, I met this guy, Mark Shirman, who knew how to sell and buy ventures.”

With the combination of Shirman’s experience starting services companies and Scannell’s IT infrastructure background, that fortuitous meeting led them to co-found GlassHouse. Over the past nine years, Scannell has branded the company as an edgier services firm that “tells customers the way things really are instead of the way most vendors spin things.” Proudest accomplishment: “Co-starting GlassHouse. If you told me when we started that we would have 650 employees globally, I would have told you you’re crazy.”

Mentor: “Mark Shirman. He has presented me with opportunities to do everything in this business and has supported me and let me chart my own course.”

Vacation time: “I’m a pretty boring guy, but we like to travel; we’ve been to a dozen countries.”

BY JIM SCHAKENBACH, Special to Mass High Tech

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Mark Shirman on Richard Scannell

CEO of GlassHouse

What makes him successful:
“His ability to think strategically yet operationally is at a level beyond almost anyone else I have worked with. One of the secrets to the success we have had here as a company has been the versatile nature of Richard’s business acumen.”