On November 12, 2009 the Vilna Shul on Beacon Hill hosted a “Fireside Chat with Alan Trefler, the Founder and CEO of Pegasystems.”
One of the things that makes Alan Trefler so interesting is written about in an article in the New York Times dated July 15, 1975. Imagine the third annual World Open tournament at the Roosevelt Hotel where 815 entrants are competing for the chess championship that Bobby Fisher refuses to defend. Trefler, then a 19-year-old from Brookline, MA rises to the top of the chess world when he ties for first place with seasoned chess grandmaster, Pal Benko.
Trefler went on to receive a degree in Economics and Computer Science from Dartmouth College. His experience teaching computers how to play chess led to his co-founding Pegasystems in 1983. Pegasystems’ develops software that allows companies to aggregate diverse business practices so that business managers can rapidly implement change across the enterprise and over the Web. Trefler has been CEO of the company for its entire 26-year history.
At the fireside chat, Trefler said that unfortunately a lot of the innovation culture today is tied to a making a quick buck which can mean that people start things that they don’t finish. Pegasystems was started to be a company for a long time which means that you do things differently than you do when you build a company to flip it.
Throughout his career, he has consulted on the use of advanced technologies, customer service processing, expert systems, and work automation. Trefler has presented to international audiences, and has written for major publications. He has been profiled in such publications as The Boston Globe, Forbes, and Inc. magazine; and was granted a U.S. Patent in 1998 for Pegasystems’ Inherited Rule-Based Architecture.
– Carole Gunst
