Francisco D'Souza (born 23 August 1968) is an

Indian-American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

entrepreneur and businessman, who is the former CEO and Vice Chairman of

Cognizant Cognizant is an American multinational information technology services and consulting company. It is headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, United States. Cognizant is part of the NASDAQ-100 and trades under CTSH. It was founded as an in-hous ...

— a Fortune 200 global professional services company – co-founded the

NASDAQ-100 The Nasdaq-100 (^NDX) is a stock market index made up of 101 equity securities issued by 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. It is a modified capitalization-weighted index. The stocks' weights in the in ...

company in 1994. He succeeded Lakshmi Narayanan as the CEO in 2007 and in 2018 was appointed Vice Chairman, while continuing his role as the CEO till 1 April 2019.

Biography

Francisco was born in

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper h ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

as the son of Placido D'Souza—an

Indian Foreign Service The Indian Foreign Service (IFS) is the diplomatic service and a central civil service of the Government of India under the Ministry of External Affairs. The Foreign Secretary is the head of the service. Vinay Mohan Kwatra is the 34th and the ...

s officer and diplomat who grew up in

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

— and Sushila. He has his roots in

Anjuna Anjuna () is a village located on the coast of North Goa, India. It is a Census Town, one of the twelve Brahmin comunidades of Bardez. It is mostly a tourist destination. Its church, St. Michael's Church, Anjuna, founded in 1595, is dedicated ...

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...

. He spent his childhood in 11 countries and went on to do a

Bachelor of Business Administration Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is a bachelor's degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business administration and usually including advanced ...

from University of East Asia Macau and a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accoun ...

from Carnegie Mellon University. He has three sisters, Jacinta, Lucia and Maria.

Career

After his graduation from

Tepper School of Business The Tepper School of Business is the business school of Carnegie Mellon University. It is located in the university's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US. The school offers degrees from the undergraduate through doctoral levels, in addition ...

( Carnegie Mellon University), Francisco joined Dun & Bradstreet as a management associate in 1992.

began in 1994 as an in-house project of Dun & Bradstreet, led by Francisco. During the years from 1996, he held various leadership roles at Cognizant. He was elevated to CEO and joined the Board of Directors of

in January 2007, and promoted to the Vice Chairman of the Board in June 2018. In 2013, Francisco joined the board of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...

as its youngest director. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon University and as Co-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the New York Hall of Science. Francisco is a member of the World Economic Forum and the 2019 Chairman of the World Economic Forum's IT Governors Steering Committee. He sits on the Board of Directors of The National Medal of Honor Museum. In November 2019,

MongoDB MongoDB is a source-available cross-platform document-oriented database program. Classified as a NoSQL database program, MongoDB uses JSON-like documents with optional schemas. MongoDB is developed by MongoDB Inc. and licensed under the Ser ...

Appoints Francisco D'Souza to the board of directors. In July 2020,

Banco Santander Banco Santander, S.A., doing business as Santander Group (, , Spanish: ), is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Madrid and Santander in Spain. Additionally, Santander maintains a presence in all global financial centr ...

has appointed Francisco to top tier executive position in support of its digital transformation strategy.

Awards and honors

* 2005 -

The Economic Times ''The Economic Times'' is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. It is owned by The Times Group. ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961. As of 2012, it is the world's second-most widely read English-language bu ...

Entrepreneur Award * 2009 - named among "America's Best CEOs" by Institutional Investor magazine * 2013 - named among "100 CEO Leaders in STEM" by STEMconnector * 2013 - Recognized as the Best CEO, Forbes India * 2014 - "Newsmaker of the Year" by The Financial Express * 2017 - #10 on Fortune Businessperson of the Year

References

External links

Profile at Forbes.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:D'Souza, Francisco Living people American people of Goan descent American people of Indian descent Tepper School of Business alumni 1968 births University of Macau alumni American technology chief executives