Chad Foster

Chad E. Foster is a husband, a father, and an avid snow skier (that is not a joke) who is not just competing with his condition, he is competing with the world’s most successful people. Chad believes he is not successful in spite of being blind, but rather he is successful because he’s blind. He embraced his problem and turned it into a solution.


Can you imagine going blind as a teenager? When most people were preparing for the adventure of adult life, Chad E. Foster was watching the world he grew up in fade to black. But that didn’t stop him from becoming the first blind person to graduate from the Harvard Business School leadership program and climbing the corporate ladder as a successful Finance/Sales executive. Throughout his career, his financial strategies and decisions have resulted in the creation of countless jobs, billions of dollars in revenue, industry-leading growth, and best-in-class margins. He works at Red Hat, one of the most innovative Tech companies and the world’s largest open source software company (recently purchased by IBM for $34 billion). With determination, ambition, and drive, he created what Oracle said would be impossible. He gave millions of people the ability to earn a living by becoming the first to create customer relationship software for the visually impaired. With speaking invites from London to Beijing, and the Atlanta Opera commissioning an opera inspired by his life story, Chad inspires people to overcome their own blind spots.

Chad Foster - GovCon 2024 Opening Keynote

Chad Foster

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