John Faraci of International Paper accepted an award as North American CEO of the year on Thursday at RISI's 29th annual North American Forest Products Conference in Boston. Faraci won the award after leading Memphis-headquartered IP through a "transformation" program that sold off nearly all of the firm's timberlands to refocus it on industrial packaging and white papers, as well as launching a globalization campaign that led to the acquisition of foreign assets in key world markets.