Francisco D’Souza is a Kenyan-born Indian American entrepreneur and businessman, who is the former CEO and Vice Chairman of Cognizant, an American multinational corporation that provides IT services, including digital, technology, consulting, and operations services.
Early life and education
Francisco D’Souza was born on August 23, 1968, in Nairobi, Kenya. D’Souza is the son of Placido and Sushila. D’Souza’s father is an Indian Foreign Services officer and diplomat. He spent his childhood in 11 countries and went on to study at the University of East Asia Macau to do a Bachelor of Business Administration and earned a Master of Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University in 1992.
Early career
After graduating from Tepper School of Business (Carnegie Mellon University), D’Souza joined Dun & Bradstreet Corporation in 1992 and held various marketing, technology management, and business development positions as a Management Associate. While working at The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, he was part of the team that started the software development and maintenance business.
Since February 1995, D’Souza served as a Product Manager at Pilot Software until December 1995.
Cognizant
Cognizant began in 1994, as Dun & Bradstreet Satyam Software (DBSS), established as Dun & Bradstreet’s in-house technology unit dedicated to implementing large-scale IT projects for Dun & Bradstreet businesses. During the years from 1996, D’Souza assumed different leadership roles at Cognizant.
In 1996, D’Souza was involved as Cognizant’s Consultant. During this year, Dun & Bradstreet spun off several of its subsidiaries including Erisco, Nielsen Media Research, IMS International, Pilot Software, Strategic Technologies, and DBSS, to establish a new company called Cognizant Corporation. Three months later, in 1997, DBSS changed itself to Cognizant Technology Solutions. In June 1997, D’Souza became the Cognizant’s Director of North American Operations and Business Development.
In July 1997, Dun & Bradstreet obtained 24% stake of Satyam in DBSS for $3.4 million. Headquarters were relocated to the United States, and in March 1998, Kumar Mahadeva became the CEO. Serving as a division of the Cognizant Corporation, the company concentrated on Y2K-web development and related projects.
In March 1998, D’Souza served as Cognizant’s Vice President of North American Operations and Business Development. The same year that the parent company, Cognizant Corporation, divided into two companies: Nielsen Media Research and IMS Health. After this rearrangement, Cognizant Technology Solutions became a public subsidiary of IMS Health. In June 1998, IMS Health somewhat spun off the company, performing an initial public offering of the Cognizant stock. The company raised $34 million, less than what the IMS Health underwriters had anticipated. They allocated the money for upgrading company offices and debt payments.
Kumar Mahadeva decided to lessen the company’s dependence on Y2K projects: by Q1 1999, 26% of the company’s revenues came from Y2K projects, compared with 49% in early 1998. Thinking that the $16.6 billion business resource planning software market was saturated, Mahadeva decided to abstain from large-scale ERP application projects. Instead, Mahadeva concentrated on applications management, which accounted for 37% of Cognizant’s revenue in Q1 1999. In November 1999, D’Souza served as Cognizant’s Senior Vice President of North American Operations and Business Development.
Cognizant’s profits in 2002 were $229 million, and the company had no debt with $100 million in the bank. During the dotcom bust, the company developed by taking on the maintenance projects that larger IT services companies did not want.
In 2003, IMS Health sold its 56% stake in Cognizant, which initiated a poison pill provision to prevent unfriendly takeover attempts. Kumar Mahadeva resigned at the company as the CEO in 2003 and was replaced by Lakshmi Narayanan. During this year, D’Souza served as Chief Operating Officer of the company. Gradually, the company’s services portfolio increased across the IT services landscape and business consulting and into business process outsourcing (BPO). Lakshmi Narayanan was succeeded by D’Souza as the Chief Executive Officer and a Member of the Board of Directors at Cognizant in January 2007.
During the 2000s, Cognizant experienced a period of fast growth, as signified by its appearance in Fortune magazine’s 100 Fastest-Growing Companies list for ten consecutive years from 2003 to 2012. In September 2014, Cognizant struck its biggest deal, acquiring TriZetto Corp, healthcare IT services provider for $2.7 billion. Cognizant shares rose approximately three percent in pre-market trading. Cognizant concentrates on three key service lines across numerous industries: Digital Operations, Digital Business, and Digital Systems & Technology.
Francisco D’Souza holds five board and advisor roles: Member of the Board of Directors at the US-India Business Council, Cognizant, and General Electric (GE); and Co-chairman of the Board of Trustees at New York Hall of Science and Carnegie Mellon University. At General Electric, D’Souza is also currently a Member of the Audit Committee and the Science and Technology Committee.
D’Souza also serves as a Director at MediCall Philippines, a Member of International Advisory Board at Banco Santander, S.A, and served as a Director of Active Decisions, Inc. D’Souza is a member of the World Economic Forum and the 2019 Chairman of the World Economic Forum’s IT Governors Steering Committee. D’Souza sits on the Board of Directors of The National Medal of Honor Museum.
On April 1, 2019, Brian Humphries replaced D’Souza as Cognizant’s CEO and made him the company’s Executive Vice Chairman.