About Joel Trammell

I am a serial entrepreneur and lifelong learner about building great organizations. My leadership has led to multiple successful exits and exceptional investor returns over my 30-year career. I am the owner of Texas CEO Magazine, which reaches more than 10,000 CEOs across the state. I am a pioneer in the field of CEO education and training.

After decades as a CEO (a field in which the average shelf life is only 5 years), I identified a pervasive problem: many of my fellow business leaders seriously lacked the fundamental tools and education to make their companies truly great. I launched this website to provide the support and guidance peers were lacking, and also wrote a book titled The CEO Tightrope (Greenleaf Book Group, 2014), a comprehensive guide featuring proven techniques and approaches for overcoming the unique challenges of being a CEO, and recently co-authored a new book titled The Chief Executive Operating System (P180 Press, 2023), which is the first of its kind — an essential playbook for the CEO role.

I served as co-founder and CEO at NetQoS, a software company that optimized the performance of computer networks. Under my tenure, the company generated more than 10 times the return on invested capital. I moved on to co-found another software company, CacheIQ, which delivered a 7X return to investors in 18 months. I also served as a board member and then CEO of the network services provider Black Box Corporation (NASDAQ:BBOX). I am also the co-founder and managing partner of Lone Rock Technology, a private equity firm.

Most recently, I co-founded CEO-S, which is a system for CEOs which aims to create predictable business performance. I also engineered an AI into my Manager360 programs which allows managers and CEOs to access knowledge within seconds.

As a leading CEO educator, I regularly speak at conferences and events nationwide. I have contributed to Entrepreneur, Forbes and Inc.com, sharing my experienced-based insight on business leadership topics. I have served on the boards of public, private and non-profit organizations. I was named Chairman Emeritus of the Austin Technology Council and regularly teach a course for Austin CEOs.

I hold a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Louisiana Tech University and am a former instructor at the US Navy’s Nuclear Power School. I currently live in Austin, Texas, with my wife and three children. In my free time, you might find me on the tennis court.