Francisco D'Souza is the president and CEO of Cognizant and was part of the team that founded the Nasdaq-100 company in 1994. In 2007, at the age of 38, he took over from Lakshmi Narayanan, who was promoted to Vice Chairman. Francisco D'Souza is among the youngest Chief Executive Officers in the software services sector.
He is a person of Indian origin (PIO), born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1968, and has 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.[1]
Francisco D'Souza has more than 20 years of experience in the information technology industry, in both operational and advisory roles. Effective January 1, 2007, D'Souza was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Cognizant. He oversees much of the operations and business development of the company, working closely with Cognizant clients who are using offshore resources to execute large software development and maintenance projects.
At Cognizant, which he joined in its early days, 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, D'Souza was engaged as a consultant.He is one of the CEO's who could achieve this feat at an early age and thus made Cognizant on remarkable stage,his long years of experience is a lesson to many.
From February 1995 to December 1995, D'Souza was employed as Product Manager at Pilot Software. Between 1992 and 1995, D'Souza held various marketing, business development and technology management positions as a Management Associate at The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation in Germany, the U.S. and India. While working at The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, D'Souza was part of the team that established the software development and maintenance business conducted by Cognizant.
D'Souza won The Economic Times Entrepreneur Award in 2005. He was also a 2002 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. In 2009 he was named among "America's Best CEOs" by Institutional Investor magazine.[2]