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,…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Sunny Gupta Cofounder, President & CEO, Apptio Corporation Sunny Gupta began apptio after asking the CIO of Goldman Sachs to tell him what the financial giant was struggling with. The reply inspired the creation of Apptios cloud-based services that help IT departments track their costs and identify where spending is most effective. Since then, listening…

This is the third year for Seattle Business magazines Executive Excellence Awards. In that short time, the program has evolved into a signature event of the Seattle business community an exhilarating celebration of thoughtful leadership and progressive management. This years class of 13 honorees was feted at a gala on January 22 in Seattles Fairmont…