ECI Software Solutions has announced its CEO, Ron Books, and President and COO, Trevor Gruenewald, have each been honored with regional and international awards. The awards recognize Books and Gruenewald for their leadership skills, community involvement and significant career accomplishments—including growing ECI into the industry-leading cloud software business it is today.
Books was named the Fort Worth Business Press’ 2019 Top Private Company CEO. The award, which is one of three major CEO recognitions that the publication gives out each year, honors the leading private company CEO for their leadership and contributions to their organization and their community. Books—who started as ECI’s 32nd employee in 1999—took over as CEO in 2009 and set out to help the company overcome challenges resulting from the economic downturn of 2008. Working alongside Gruenewald, Books reinvented ECI’s business strategy, helping the company to improve customer unit retention to more than 90%, increase customer revenue retention from 85% to 100%, grow the customer base from 4,000 to 16,000 worldwide and increase headcount from 315 to nearly 1,400 ECI employees. Under both Books’ and Gruenewald’s leadership, ECI has made more than 20 acquisitions in the last decade, six of which occurred this past year alone. The company was also named #16 in Fort Worth Business Press’ Top 100 Private Companies list, which is compiled based on total sales of the previous year.
These growth metrics were also a deciding factor in Gruenewald’s 2019 Fort Worth Business Press C-Suite Award win, which also recognized his civic and social contributions. In addition to helping manage ECI’s global workforce—which continues to grow as a result of the company’s aggressive acquisition strategy—Gruenewald is an active member of his community. He regularly dedicates time to coach young athletes, lead youth groups, help elderly citizens to doctors’ appointments and volunteer at local nonprofits. His philanthropic endeavors and impressive career trajectory—including his time at AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Inc. and Avaya—also led to him receiving a Gold Stevie® for Lifetime Achievement in the 2019 International Business Awards.
In addition to the company’s C-Suite award wins, ECI was also named one of the Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces in North America for the fourth year in a row. The annual award, issued by Achievers, an industry-leading provider of employee recognition and engagement solutions, applauds top employers for demonstrating innovation in engaging employees in culture-building activities.
“Employee engagement starts from the very top of the organization, and we couldn’t ask for two better leaders than Ron and Trevor,” said Andrew Pryor, SVP of Human Resources, ECI. “I know I speak for our entire employee base when I say how proud we all are to work for such kind and dedicated individuals. There isn’t a more deserving duo of these awards than our CEO and COO.”
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