Juan Diego Calle – founder and CEO of .CO Internet S.A.S, the registry operator for the .CO top-level domainOn behalf of our entire team, we congratulate Juan Diego Calle, our fabulous CEO, on being honored as the "Technology Executive of the Year" in the 2011 Technology Leaders of the Year Awards, by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. While headquartered in Colombia, the marketing support for .CO is driven from Miami.

The Technology Leaders of the Year Awards "highlight individuals and organizations with extraordinary technological hands-on experience whose management of technology resources and/or technological innovations have made outstanding contributions to their organization and the community."

On a personal level, I couldn't be more proud of Juan's achievement. Having previously worked at Goldman Sachs, and consulted with many Fortune 100 companies, I have had the privilege of working with many smart, successful people — all leaders in their fields. I can sincerely say that I've never worked with anyone who is as naturally, innately gifted as a leader as Juan Diego Calle.

Visionary, strategic, insightful, decisive — Juan leads this team by inspiring, encouraging and empowering each of us to contribute our very best every single day. He graciously gives credit to others when things go right — and willingly takes blame on himself when they do not. And in the nearly three years I've worked with him, I've never once seen him treat a member of his team as a subordinate — no matter how junior their role.

Written by Lori Anne Wardi, Director at .CO