Andrew Anagnost is the President and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

, having been appointed to the positions in 2017. He took over the positions from

Carl Bass Carl Bass is a former president and chief executive officer of Autodesk, Inc., a maker of professional 3D design software and consumer applications, and was a co-founder of Ithaca Software, which commercialized HOOPS, a 3D graphics system. Bass h ...

, who resigned in February 2017. Before the promotion, he had served in various other roles for the company since joining in 1997. He holds degrees from

California State University, Northridge California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge) is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. With a total enrollment of 38,551 students (as of Fall 2021), it has the second largest un ...

and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Early life and education

Anagnost grew up in

Van Nuys Van Nuys () is a neighborhood in the central San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California. Home to Van Nuys Airport and the Valley Municipal Building, it is the most populous neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. History In 1909, t ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and initially dropped out of high school. After issues with legal and educational authorities, his family helped him enroll in a new high school and he went on to graduate. Afterwards, Anagnost went on to earn a bachelor's degree in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

from

(CSUN) in 1987. His mother, sister, and brother also graduated from CSUN. During his bachelor's degree, Anagnost completed an internship at

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

. He later obtained an MS in

engineering science Engineering physics, or engineering science, refers to the study of the combined disciplines of physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, particularly computer, nuclear, electrical, electronic, aerospace, materials or mechanical en ...

and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

aeronautical engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: Aeronautics, aeronautical engineering and Astronautics, astronautical engineering. A ...

with a minor in computer science from

Career

Following graduation from his bachelor's, Anagnost initially worked as a composites structure engineer and propulsion installation engineer at

, where he had previously interned. He left the position to pursue his further education at Stanford, leading to a position at the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

as a

National Research Council National Research Council may refer to: * National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development * National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome * National Research Council (United States), part of ...

post-doctoral fellow. Finding the aeronautics business 'too slow', he joined the

Exa Corporation Exa Corporation was a developer and distributor of computer-aided engineering (CAE) software. Its main product was PowerFLOW, a lattice-boltzmann derived implementation of computational fluid dynamics (CFD), which can very accurately simulate int ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

in 1992, before joining

as a product manager in 1997. Early on in his career at Autodesk, he led development of the company’s manufacturing products and increased the revenue of

Autodesk Inventor Autodesk Inventor is a computer-aided design application for 3D mechanical design, simulation, visualization, and documentation developed by Autodesk. Features Inventor allows 2D and 3D data integration in a single environment, creating a virt ...

five-fold to more than $500 million. Working his way up through the company over the years, he achieved the position of

Chief Marketing Officer A chief marketing officer (CMO), also called a global marketing officer or marketing director, or chief brand officer, is a corporate executive responsible for managing marketing activities in an organization. Whilst historically these titles may ...

and SVP of the Business Strategy & Marketing. In these roles, he was credited with Autodesk's transition to

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...

, as well as the adoption of

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

. Following the resignation of

, Anagnost was appointed as interim-CEO together with Amar Hanspal, the Chief Product Officer. Following a four month search, Anagnost was permanently appointed as President and CEO of the company. In this role, Anagnost has pushed for a refocus of the company on software for

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

, leading to the demise of some other company ventures and a workforce slash which saw 1,200 employees lose their job at the company. As part of the new focus, Autodesk acquired construction tech start-ups PlanGrid for $875 million, the company's biggest ever acquisition, and BuildingConnected for $275 million in 2018. Additionally, since becoming CEO, the company's share price has nearly tripled and Autodesk has reached a market value of $41.1B, entering the

Forbes Global 2000 The ''Forbes'' Global 2000 is an annual ranking of the top 2000 public companies in the world, published by ''Forbes'' magazine. "The Global 2000" annual ranking is assembled by ''Forbes'' using a weighted assessment of four metrics: sales, profi ...

and

Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...

Personal life and philanthropy

Growing up, Anagnost's dream job was to work on space ships for

. He enjoys reading

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novels, with ''

The Fountains of Paradise ''The Fountains of Paradise'' is a 1979 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. Set in the 22nd century, it describes the construction of a space elevator. This "orbital tower" is a giant structure rising from the ground ...

'' being one of his favorite works, and is a fan of both the

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

and

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

franchises. In 2018, Anagnost was one of the judges in the Annual Engineering Showcase at his alma mater CSUN and hosted a talk at the university. The following year he was rewarded with the 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award from CSUN. That same year, Anagnost and his wife donated $300,000 to the university to establish the Teresa Sendra-Anagnost Memorial Scholarship Endowment in honor of his mother, who died in 2011 after suffering complications from cardiac surgery. The endowment supports outstanding students in the university's College of Engineering and Computer Science through funding of their education. Autodesk also donated $1 million to CSUN in 2020 to support the founding and construction of a Center for Integrated Design and Advanced Manufacturing at the university.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anagnost, Andrew Living people American computer businesspeople American technology chief executives California State University, Northridge alumni Stanford University School of Engineering alumni Autodesk people Year of birth missing (living people)