Chief Executive Of The Year 2000.

"IT's TRULY AN HONOR to be here tonight and, on behalf of all the employees at Cisco, to accept this award. I am greatly humbled by it. I have always been in awe of the award winners," said Cisco Systems' John Chambers in accepting the 2000 Chief Executive of the Year award at a gala dinner co-hosted by the New York Stock Exchange at its lower Manhattan headquarters in July. More than 300 well-wishers, mostly CEOs and their spouses, gathered to pay tribute to Chambers (see photo, left) at CE's 15th annual black-tie event.

A selection committee of CEOs, including the 1999 Chief Executive of the Year, Southwest Airline's Herb Kelleher, chose Chambers from a group of finalists determined by CE readers, who praised the CEO for, among other things, his ability to achieve consistent long-term operating performance, deliver impressive shareholder value, and master the soft skills to become more coach than boss, which makes him "a man of extraordinary leadership," according to selection committee member Robert Davis, CEO of Lycos.

In presenting Chambers with the award, Kelleher said, "Cisco has triumphed and Cisco will continue to triumph because John Chambers believes in quickness rather than bureaucracy, technology for the customer's sake rather than for technology's sake, teamwork rather than tribalism, and leadership by example rather than management by delegation."

Among the night's speakers was NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso, who spoke to attendees about the stunning achievements of Cisco Systems with Chambers at the helm. "Tonight we celebrate truly one of the great success stories of American business. A company that in the just slightly more than 10 years that it has been publicly traded has gone from a revenue line of less than $70 million to more than $12 billion. It is one of the three companies most often mentioned as the most likely to be the first to cross the marker cap magic line of a trillion dollars."

At CE's traditional pre-dinner award ceremony in the NYSE's Board Room, a bronzed bust or "lifemask" of Kelleher--created by Santa Fe artist Willa Shalit, who has molded similar masks for Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush-- was presented to Kelleher.

In Chamber's Words

Tonight is also a chance to share a view with you that the Internet is going to change everything in our lives. It's going to change business. In this mecca of capitalism, business is already understanding that it is the second industrial revolution. It will determine which companies grow and survive and which ones get left behind. It will change our lives in ways we just couldn't even understand.

But it also is only half the equalizer of life. The other half is education. While the Internet will level the playing field on a global basis in a way that has never been done before it will also allow for jobs and capital entrepreneurialism to go where the best educated workforce is. At the present time our country is failing in this area. The K through 12 system is broken.

So, this digital divide that everybody is talking about is not applied to the Internet revolution. You might be in the right city, the right country and have the right education to participate. There will become a digital divide when we leave behind the majority of Americans, if we do not fix our education system.

Because this is important to our future, I ask you to do the same thing in your speeches within your own employee base, your customers, the financial community, and politicians. American business may have to fix the education system; We're going to back education with our time, our resources, our financial dollars and we're going to make this happen because we are the only group that is protected from special interest groups. And we grasp in ways that others do not what this means to the future of American business and the future of our country.

In Kelleher's Words

The inspiration for the following comedic tribute came from John Chambers' joke about being confused with Sysco Food Services. When Chambers said, "I finally knew we had arrived as a company when we stopped getting calls about our delivery vans" during the pre-dinner award ceremony, Kelleher couldn't resist the temptation to have a little fun with it...

I can't tell you what a difference it makes to honor John Chambers for this seat and the reason I say that is you know a lot of people are in businesses that have no connection with your daily life. We really don't understand what they are. They are kind of high tech. They do something you don't know about. They do routers and switches and things like that. But encounter John's work everyday in the things that eat...the tomatoes.

And Cisco is the greatest wholesale food company because we all eat. But in saying a few words about John Chambers I guess it sort of makes me feel like a porcupine on the verge of making love. Like the porcupine I proceed very carefully. As near as I can figure, John buys 10 companies each year. If he disapproves of my comments I could wind up my career designing switches at Cisco. Since my only familiarity with switches are the ones that mother applied to my rear end, I'm afraid I wouldn't be around long enough to confess. And I do have to confess, John, that my sole try at networking was being the only boy in my high school's home economics class.

Cisco has gone so far, so fast and so' successfully that it really makes one wonder how this miracle could possibly have transpired. It is simply astounding to me that Cisco became so large so quickly while absorbing so many disparate cultures from acquired companies and still be selected as one of the best companies to work for in America. That's truly extraordinary. That incredible combination is an incredible tribute to the incredible genius and the incredible leadership of John Chambers.