Michael Capellas
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Michael David Capellas (born August 19, 1955 in Warren, Ohio) is on the Board of Directors for Cisco Systems and Senior Advisor for Silver Lake Partners.
Past Executive Roles:
Former Chief Executive officer (CEO) and Chairman of: Compaq Computer Corporation 1999 - 2001(HP buyout - He became President of HP before leaving to MCI) MCI WorldCom 2002-2006 (Verizon Buyout)
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[edit] Early years
Capellas says he inherited his gritty determination from his father, a Greek citizen who fought with the U.S. Army to push the Germans out of Italy in World War II. After the war, the elder Capellas met and married his wife, Juliet, in Italy. The family move to Ohio where Capellas' immigrant father had worked his way up from laborer to superintendent at the Republic Steel Corp. My dad had an unbelievable work ethic. He was intensely loyal to the company. He worked there for 30 years, says Capellas.
As an undergraduate at Kent State University, Capellas fell in love with computers. Shortly after he graduated from Kent State Capellas met his future wife, Marie Angelillo, a former nurse. The two married in 1979, and for the next 20 years they crisscrossed the globe as Capellas climbed the ranks of each company he joined.
[edit] Career
Capellas held 22 different operational and leadership roles at six companies--including Schlumberger, Benchmarking Partners, SAP, Oracle Corp. (ORCL) -- and then Compaq as its chief information officer. He ultimately became Compaq's turnaround CEO, and within one year, the company was stabilizing. Capellas had reorganized the company to make it more nimble, slashed expenses, increased online sales from $1 million to $6 million per day, and rekindled innovation. In the second quarter, revenues grew 7.5%, to $10.13 billion--after a year of stagnation--with Japan growing at a blistering 40% and Latin America up 29%. The company earned $387 million, compared with a $184 million loss in the quarter a year earlier.[1]
In July 30, 1999, Capellas helped in smoothing over the Microsoft and Compaq relationship which had soured over the years. His driving force resulted in Compaq's becoming Microsoft's key strategic partner for the release of its Windows 2000 operating system.
Capellas led Compaq into a merger with Hewlett-Packard. After an eight-month proxy and board room fight, Hewlett-Packard announced the completion of its Compaq acquistion on May 3, 2002. Capellas became president of the post-merger Hewlett-Packard.
In December 2002, Capellas became President and CEO of MCI.
As of December 2006, Capellas was appointed acting CEO of Serena Software. He was brought on by Silver Lake, the company that took Serena private in March of 2006.
