Francisco D'Souza
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Francisco D'Souza is the CEO of Cognizant Technology Solutions. He took over from Lakshmi Narayanan who was promoted as the Vice Chairman. Mr. Francisco D'Souza is among the youngest Chief Executive Officers in the software services sector at the age 38. He was part of the team founded, in 1994, the Nasdaq-100 Cognizant Technology Solutions.
He was a person of Indian origin (PIO), born in Nairobi, Kenya, and lived in 11 countries. His father was a diplomat with Indian Foreign Services. Francisco D'Souza holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of East Asia and a Master of Business Administration degree from Carnegie-Mellon University.
[edit] Profile
Effective January 1, 2007, Francisco D'Souza was appointed as the President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Cognizant Technology Solutions.
Francisco D'Souza won the Economic Times Entrepreneur Award in 2005. Francisco was also a 2002 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. Francisco D'Souza has 17 years of experience in the information technology industry, in both operational and advisory roles. At Cognizant, which he joined in its early days, Francisco oversees much of the operations and business development of the company. He works closely with Cognizant clients who are using offshore resources to execute large software development and maintenance projects. Francisco spent the previous four years of his career at various divisions of The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, holding key positions in marketing, strategic planning, and new business development in Germany, the US and India.
Francisco D'Souza was elected Chief Operating Officer in December 2003. Prior to that, from November 1999 to December 2003, he served as Senior Vice President, North American Operations and Business Development. From March 1998 to November 1999, he served as Vice President, North American Operations and Business Development and as Director-North American Operations and Business Development from June 1997 to March 1998. From January 1996 to June 1997, Mr. D'Souza was engaged as consultant. From February 1995 to December 1995, Mr. D'Souza was employed as Product Manager at Pilot Software. Between 1992 and 1995, Mr. D'Souza held various marketing, business development and technology management positions as a Management Associate at The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation. While working at The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, Mr. D'Souza was part of the team that established the software development and maintenance business conducted by cognizant.
