Our Story

Founder Lou Carter fully immersed himself in emotional connection from his Senior Executive Board Consortium, drumming circles at Columbia, deep research and testing, HR SaaS product skillrater, and work as a Chief Strategic Advisor to CEOs.

After writing 12 books and ten research papers on how companies and their executives make deep change and transformation, and launching the Newsweek Most Loved Workplaces and Excellence Index, it was time to make something awesome happen on a deeper level. 

So, he and his team of awesome leading machine learning experts, HR Data analysts, and tech stars from his company Best Practice Institute and the Most Loved Workplace® team have come together to bring you workplacely – to give your employees a chance to voice for their feelings and do something about it.

Our Story

Louis Carter graduates from Columbia University with a Social/Organizational Psychology degree. Post-9/11, he initiates a drum circle at Columbia, fostering a community based on care. This initiative evolves into a benchmarking research consortium. The same year, John Wiley and Sons published his book "Best Practices in Leadership Development and Organization Change," co-edited with Marshall Goldsmith, David Ulrich, and his program chair at Columbia, Warner Burke.

2001

Carter creates a leading thinkers board and expert council comprising top thought leaders such as Nathaniel Branden, Warren Bennis, Marshall Goldsmith, Sally Helgesen, Frances Hesselbein, Richard Beckhard, Chris Argyris, and Ed Schein. This group, alongside 1000 experts from around the globe, forms the foundation of the Best Practice Institute.

2005

He founds a culture transformation company that serves the Pentagon, UN, and Fortune 500 companies such as Volvo, Allstate, GSK, Pfizer, Bank of America, and Corning.

2006

"The Change Champion's Field Guide" is published and becomes a best-seller. Carter extends the BPI Senior Executive Board to include CHROs from over 30 Fortune 500 companies, also launching extensive online training for HR professionals.

2011

Skillrater, an HR SaaS product, is launched by Carter, earning the Top 10 HR SaaS Products award at HR Tech.

2014

He identifies the need for improved tools for measuring employee satisfaction through his Senior Executive Board of F500 and Government organizations. 

2017

Carter addresses this need with the publication of "In Great Company" and his research on emotional connectedness and organizational commitment. He creates the Love of Workplace Index® to certify companies as Most Loved Workplaces and begins administering the index to companies. 

2018

The Most Loved Workplace Platform is developed, setting new standards for culture surveys and company certifications.

2019

 The team publishes studies and whitepapers showing that Most Loved Workplaces® have better performance and retention rates.

2020

The issue of Newsweek's America's Most Loved Workplaces becomes the publication's most popular issue for companies.

2021

The Top 100 Newsweek UK Top Most Loved Workplaces, and the Newsweek Top 100 Global Most Loved Workplaces are introduced.

2022

The Excellence Index is launched. Workplacely is unveiled as the analytical engine behind the sentiment and emotion analysis for employee and customer feedback, involved in all issues and certification processes.

2023

We brought on 80 new companies for our Gold, Silver and Bronze plan and now have 1M points of data - which has substantially built our database and ability to provide actionable, validated, benchmarks that make insights meaningful and powerful for our premium clients. 

2024

Team

Lou Carter

Founder and CEO

CEO Best Practice Institute,Most Loved Workplace® | Workplacely | Host of Leader Show on Newsweek | Top America’s, UK’s, and Global Most Loved Workplaces and Excellence 1000 index

Scott Baxt

COO and former head of IQPC and ERE

Head of Research, COO Best Practice Institute and Most Loved Workplace. Helping companies place love of employees at the center of their business strategy.

Pam B

Customer Success and Marketing Manager, former Head of Marketing at Clinch, Page Up, and Jobvite

Pam is a marketing executive specializing in HR tech with 25+ years at companies like meQuilibrium and Skillsoft. At Most Loved Workplaces, she advises on customer strategy and partnerships.

Grant Ingersoll

Fractional CTO

Helped build the infrastructure for machine learning and structure of the SaaS. Ex-CTO of Wikimedia Foundation, the non profit supporting open knowledge projects like Wikipedia and Wikidata. Co-founder and ex CTO of Lucidworks. 

Grant Ingersoll

Eric Nelson

Strategic Advisor in Sales and Fractional CSO
Eric Nelson, brings extensive HR tech leadership from roles at Taleo, HireVue, and Paradox. He specializes in scaling sales teams and driving growth through innovative talent solutions.

Bernadette Quinn

Bernadette is a senior operations strategist who has led workforce analytics and HR operations at major companies including CVS Health's Digital division (3,500+ employees) and Better.com during its hypergrowth from 1,000 to 10,000 employees. At Most Loved Workplaces, she analyzes employee engagement data to identify top-performing workplace cultures.

Panayotis Papoutsis PhD

Senior Data Scientist, former data scientist at Ecov and OpenClassrooms

Panos manages and proves guidance and measurement of the accuracy, improvement, and enhancement of workplacely’s machine learning models.

Zachary Leposa Soracá

Engagement Manager and former Peace Corps Volunteer and Associate at Aramark

Tracy Cohn

Senior Data Scientist, former data scientist at Ecov and OpenClassrooms

Tracy has previously worked as Marketing Manager at Ninestone Marketing and Editour Media. She specializes in digital marketing and CRM platforms, with 24+ HubSpot certifications.

Rawallon Cardosa

Rawallon Cardoso is an exceptional programmer who combines a deep technical skill set, including React, Next.js, Python, and Docker, with proactive problem-solving and adaptability. His attention to detail and ability to work seamlessly with cross-functional teams make him a valuable asset to our projects.