Sopheon CEO Greg Coticchia honored as C-Suite Leader

Coticchia Recognized by Pittsburgh Business Times for Continued Business Acumen and Unwavering Dedication to the Pittsburgh Community

PITTSBURGH — NOV. 9, 2023 — Sopheon, the InnovationOps software company, today announced that the Pittsburgh Business Times has named CEO Greg Coticchia one of its C-Suite Award recipients. The recognition honors C-suite executives in the Pittsburgh region who have demonstrated vital leadership and business savvy to guide their companies to success. Winners represent a variety of C-suite executive titles, including CEOs, COOs, CFOs, chief marketing officers, chief human resource officers and more. The award criteria also consider the impact honorees have had on the Pittsburgh area through efforts outside of the workplace.

Coticchia has led Sopheon through a significant company-wide transformation in just over two years. His efforts include:

• Guiding a corporate philosophy change. Coticchia led the charge to shift Sopheon’s corporate mindset from solely an enterprise software and services leader to a well-rounded, cloud-native, product-led company. Coticchia also innovated the Sopheon go-to-market philosophy by launching a product-led growth (PLG) initiative, combining it with existing sales-led growth (SLG) initiatives for a modern hybrid approach.

• Creating a new strategic vision. Coticchia drafted and implemented an original strategic plan that gained critical board approval for various initiatives while getting the buy-in of diverse team members and other internal stakeholders. These measures drove the company’s record results.

• Expanding the talent pool. Through Coticchia’s forward-thinking initiatives, Sopheon (a Minnesota-based company) widened its employee footprint to include talent in the Pittsburgh area. Nearly 10% of the organization’s roster now comprises Western Pennsylvania residents. He also led an expansion of hiring in Bristol, UK. He implemented a work-from-home and anywhere policy, with additional work schedule flexibility, which drove productivity, all while maintaining high team member engagement and satisfaction.

• Growing revenue. During Coticchia’s leadership, Sopheon has landed almost 60 new enterprise customers, including the company’s single largest transaction of $11.2 million with Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA); has increased the annual contract value (ACV); and has seen an impressive 63% year-over-year growth in SaaS annual recurring revenue (ARR). 

• Expanding the product offering. Through Coticchia’s strategic product vision and M&A expertise, Sopheon transitioned in the past year from Accolade, a single innovation management product, to a suite of offerings — adding Acclaim Ideas, Acclaim Products and Acclaim Projects — that help customers address every aspect of innovation. In two of the company’s solutions, he helped move forward the integration of artificial intelligence features to help customers solve problems faster and more creatively.

In addition to his business successes, Coticchia has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to furthering Pittsburgh’s rich entrepreneurial spirit and cutting-edge tech ventures and using his expertise to help others in the Pittsburgh area pursue entrepreneurial dreams. He founded ProductCamp Pittsburgh, a free premier event for local product managers and product marketing professionals. Coticchia is also the co-founder of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Founder Institute, the world’s premier idea-stage accelerator and startup launch program.

Coticchia is also an educator who is the founding Executive Director of Carnegie Mellon University’s Master’s Program in Product Management (MSPM) — the world’s first such program. Under his leadership, the program grew from four students in 2018 to 39 in 2020.

Before his tenure at Carnegie Mellon, he was the Founding Director of the student startup accelerator program The Blast Furnace. In its first two years, the program accelerated 36 new startups, three of which the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2) recognized as one of its “Best University Startups.”

“I’m humbled to be named a Pittsburgh Business Times C-Suite Award winner, but this is truly a team recognition,” said Coticchia. “The dedicated professionals at Sopheon continue to amaze me daily with their passion for innovative solutions that help our customers change the world. And my many colleagues throughout the Pittsburgh area have inspired me to continually give back to an area as vibrant, talented and dynamic as any across the U.S.”

It's the second year that the Pittsburgh Business Times is presenting the awards along with Aon and Fox Rothschild. Award winners will be honored in a special issue of the Pittsburgh Business Times on Nov. 3 and will be presented with their awards at a ceremony on Nov. 9.

About Sopheon
Sopheon (LON:SPE) empowers organizations to change the world while achieving exceptional long-term revenue growth and profitability. By operationalizing the entire innovation life cycle, Accolade^® and Acclaim™ software and expertise enable innovation, product and project professionals to accomplish the full range of InnovationOps tasks to drive innovation at scale. Sopheon’s solutions have been implemented in over 50 countries by hundreds of blue-chip customers, including the three most recent winners of the PDMA’s Outstanding Corporate Innovator Award. Sopheon is listed on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange.

Accolade^® and Acclaim™ are trademarks of Sopheon plc.

Media Contact
Sopheon
Emma Hughes
Email: Emma.Hughes@sopheon.com