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

Indian-American Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from India. The terms Asian Indian and East Indian are used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United States, who are also referred to as "Indians" or "Am ...

entrepreneur and businessman, who is the former

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

and Vice Chairman of

Cognizant Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational information technology consulting and outsourcing company originally founded in India. It is headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, United States. Co ...

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

NASDAQ-100 The Nasdaq-100 (NDX) is a stock market index made up of 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 inde ...

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 D'Souza was born in

Nairobi Nairobi is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kenya. The city lies in the south-central part of Kenya, at an elevation of . The name is derived from the Maasai language, Maasai phrase , which translates to 'place of cool waters', a ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

as the son of Placido D'Souza—an

Indian Foreign Service The Indian Foreign Service (IFS) is a diplomatic service and a Central Civil Services, central civil service of the Government of India, Government of the Republic of India under the Ministry of External Affairs (India), Ministry of External A ...

s officer and diplomat who grew up in

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

— and Sushila. He has his roots in Anjuna,

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 bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...

. D'Souza spent his childhood in 11 countries and went on to do a

Bachelor of Business Administration A Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is an undergraduate degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of four years and typically 120 credits of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of busine ...

from the University of East Asia Macau and a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...

from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

. 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. The school offers degrees from the undergraduate through doctoral levels, in addition to ...

(

), D'Souza joined

Dun & Bradstreet The Dun & Bradstreet Holdings, Inc. (D&B) is an American company that provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, the company offers a wide range of products and services for risk a ...

as a management associate in 1992.

began in 1994 as an in-house project of

, led by D'Souza. From 1996, he held various leadership roles at Cognizant. He was elevated to CEO and joined the

Board of Directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

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

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

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. D'Souza is a member of the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

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 product, MongoDB uses JSON-like documents with optional database schema, schemas. Released in February 2009 by 10gen (now MongoDB ...

appointed D'Souza to its board of directors. In July 2020,

Banco Santander Banco Santander S.A. trading as Santander Group ( , , ), is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Santander, with operative offices in Madrid. Additionally, Santander maintains a presence in most global financial centres ...

appointed D'Souza to a 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. Owned by The Times Group, ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961 and it is sold in all major cities in India. As of 2012, it is the world's secon ...

Entrepreneur Award * 2009 - named among "America's Best CEOs" by

Institutional Investor An institutional investor is an entity that pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked ...

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 Tepper School of Business alumni 1968 births University of Macau alumni American technology chief executives American people of Goan descent American people of Indian descent Kenyan people of Goan descent Kenyan people of Indian descent Kenyan emigrants to the United States