Francis Aurelio deSouza (; born December 2, 1970) is an American entrepreneur and business executive. He is the president and

chief executive officer 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 especial ...

(CEO) of Illumina and a member of the Board of Directors of

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Disney Stud ...

."Disney adds two board members from tech world"
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

''. Before Illumina, deSouza was president of products and services at Symantec. He joined Symantec in 2006 when Symantec acquired IMlogic, where deSouza was founder and CEO. Prior to IMlogic, deSouza worked at Microsoft from 1998 to 2001 after Microsoft acquired Flash Communications, where deSouza was co-founder and CEO.

Early life

He was born in

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; am, አዲስ አበባ, , new flower ; also known as , lit. "natural spring" in Oromo), is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is also served as major administrative center of the Oromia Region. In the 2007 census, t ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

, to Elpinki, an Ethiopian/Greek mother, and Domingos, an Indian father. He was the second of five children. His mother was a homemaker and his father was a commercial representative for Japanese trading company

Itochu is a Japanese corporation based in Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka and Aoyama, Minato, Tokyo. It is one of the largest Japanese ''sogo shosha'' (general trading companies). Among Japanese trading companies, it is distinguished by not being descend ...

. Before he was 5, his family moved to

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...

. In 1987, at age 16, he graduated from St. Mary's Catholic High School, Dubai, UAE and was admitted to the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT). He graduated Tau Beta Pi,

Eta Kappa Nu Eta Kappa Nu () or IEEE-HKN is the international honor society of the Computer Science and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). "The organization promotes excellence in the profession and in education through an emphasi ...

and

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

from MIT in 1992 with

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast t ...

and

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degrees in electrical engineering and computer science and a minor in economics.

Personal life

During the divorce proceedings of Mr. deSouza and his wife Erica, the division of their crypto assets became a subject of dispute, drawing attention to how Cryptocurrency assets are treated in cases of divorce.

Career

Early in his career, he worked at the IBM

Thomas J. Watson Research Center The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for IBM Research. The center comprises three sites, with its main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, U.S., 38 miles (61 km) north of New York City, Albany, New York and wit ...

and then in management consulting. DeSouza co-founded and served as CEO of Flash Communications, a provider of corporate instant messaging that was acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

in 1998.

Microsoft

Following Microsoft's acquisition of Flash, deSouza joined Microsoft and became a product unit manager, where he led the team responsible for the development of the company's enterprise real-time collaboration offerings, including

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

, chat,

voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

and NetMeeting.

IMlogic

DeSouza left Microsoft in 2001 and founded IMlogic, where he served as CEO and grew the company into the market leading provider of instant messaging security.

Symantec

DeSouza joined Symantec through the company's acquisition of IMlogic in February 2006. DeSouza served as president of products and services at Symantec until November 11, 2013. He led the research, product management, engineering, customer support and operations for Symantec's offerings, which generated $6.73 billion in revenue in FY11.

Illumina

DeSouza became president and chief executive officer of Illumina on July 5, 2016, and has served on Illumina's board of directors since November 2013. Prior to becoming president and CEO in July 2016, he served as President of Illumina from November 2013 to July 2016. He was responsible for Illumina's business units and for developing, marketing, selling and supporting the company's products. DeSouza joined Illumina in November 2013.

Board member

He served on the Board of Directors of Citrix Systems from December 2014 to June 2016. In February 2018 deSouza was elected to the Board of Directors of

Accolades and recognition

* Top CEOs 2019 on

Glassdoor Glassdoor is an American website where current and former employees anonymously review companies. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, it has additional offices in Chicago, Dublin, London, and São Paulo. Glassdoor also allows its users to ...

* Top CEOs 2018 on

* Top Businesspersons of the Year #10 on ''

Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...

'' global list of (2018) * 40 under 40 - ''Silicon Valley Business Journal'' (2007)Silicon Valley Business Journal
"People to watch"
/ref>

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Desouza, Francis 1970 births Living people American technology company founders American technology chief executives Directors of The Walt Disney Company American business executives American chief executives of manufacturing companies American computer businesspeople American management consultants MIT School of Engineering alumni American people of Greek descent American people of Indian descent American health activists American corporate directors Businesspeople in information technology Businesspeople in software Gen Digital people Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area