Dr. Richard Soley, SB ’82, SM ’85, PhD ’89
Chairman and CEO
Object Management Group, Inc.
Symposium Roles
CIO Award Judge 2012, 2013, 2014Panels Participated in
Bio
As Chairman and CEO of OMG, Dr. Soley is responsible for the vision and direction of the world's largest consortium of its type. Dr. Soley joined the nascent OMG as Technical Director in 1989, leading the development of OMG's world-leading standardization process and the original CORBA® specification. In 1996, he led the effort to move into vertical market standards (starting with healthcare, finance, telecommunications and manufacturing) and modeling, leading first to the Unified Modeling Language™ (UML®) and later the Model Driven Architecture® (MDA®). He also led the effort to establish the SOA Consortium in January 2007, leading to the launch of the Business Ecology Initiative (BEI) in 2009. The Initiative focuses on the management imperative to make business more responsive, effective, sustainable and secure in a complex, networked world, through practice areas including Business Design, Business Process Excellence, Intelligent Business, Sustainable Business and Secure Business. In addition, Dr. Soley is the Executive Director of the Cloud Standards Customer Council, helping end-users transition to cloud computing and direct requirements and priorities for cloud standards throughout the industry. Dr. Soley also serves on numerous industrial, technical and academic conference program committees, and speaks all over the world on issues relevant to standards, the adoption of new technology and creating successful companies. He is an active angel investor, and was involved in the creation of both the Eclipse Foundation and Open Health Tools. Previously, Dr. Soley was a cofounder and former Chairman/CEO of A. I. Architects, Inc., maker of the 386 HummingBoard and other PC and workstation hardware and software. Prior to that, he consulted for various technology companies and venture firms on matters pertaining to software investment opportunities. Dr. Soley has also consulted for IBM, Motorola, PictureTel, Texas Instruments, Gold Hill Computer and others. He began his professional life at Honeywell Computer Systems working on the Multics operating system. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., Dr. Soley holds bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.