Sohaib Abbasi

Sohaib Abbasi (born August 14, 1956) is a Pakistani-American business executive, computer scientist and philanthropist. He is the former chairman and chief executive of Informatica having served in the roles from 2004 until 2015.[1][2] During his tenure as CEO, Abbasi helped to grow the company's revenue from $219 million to over $1 billion, and to increase the value of stock by over 800 percent.[3]

Sohaib Abbasi
Sohaib Abbasi Keynote session at Informatica World 2012
Born (1956-08-14) August 14, 1956
Lahore, Pakistan
Alma materUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
OccupationChairman of Informatica
Years active1980-current
Known forCEO of Informatica
SVP, Tools Product Division of Oracle
Spouse(s)Sara Abbasi

He was also a member of the executive committee of Oracle Corporation and led Oracle Tools and Oracle Education as senior vice president.[4][5] He retired from these roles in 2003 after 20 years with the company and is credited with helping to grow the company from a startup into an industry leader.[6][7]

Abbasi joined the board of directors for the software company, Red Hat Inc. in 2011.[8] In May 2016, Abbasi joined the board of directors for the San Francisco-based analytics company, New Relic.[9][5] And in August 2017, Abbasi joined the board of directors for San Francisco-based StreamSets, Inc.[10], an innovator in smart data pipelines for data engineers.

Early life and education

Abbasi was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1956 and moved to various cities with his father, an air force official, before reaching the United States in 1974 to attend college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[11] Abbasi graduated with honors and obtained a bachelor's degree in Computer Science in 1978. He later earned his masters in the same field in 1980.[12][13]

Career

Early career

Abbasi began his professional career as a product manager for Professional Computer Resources in 1980. He developed financial modeling software and ERP applications there before launching his own company, Outlook Software, Inc.[14][15]

Oracle

Abbasi joined Oracle while the company was a startup in 1982, as the manager of Midwestern Sales.[16][17] Following his success in sales, Abbasi became manager of user interface development in 1984 where he created Oracle's first application programming tool, SQL*Forms.[18] The software was first introduced in 1985 and was used by over 90 percent of all Oracle DBMS shops by 1990.[18]

Abbasi also launched the software tools division at Oracle, which includes application development tools, business intelligence tools, e-business portal tools and pharmaceutical and Internet learning applications.[19] He helped grow the tools division of the company from its initial launch to generating revenues of $3.75 billion during his tenure with the company.[20] By 1989, he was named the vice-president of Tools and Multi-media for the company.[21] Abbasi was promoted further in 1994 to senior vice-president of Tools Product Division.[22] From 2001 until his retirement from the company in 2003, Abbasi held the role of senior vice president in both the Tools and Education divisions.[23]

He retired from Oracle in 2003 after 20 years and is credited with helping the company grow from a 30 employee startup with $4 million in revenue, to a company with more than 40,000 employees and revenue near $10 billion.[6][7]

Informatica

In 2004, Abbasi joined the software company, Informatica, as chief executive officer. Before Abbasi joined the company it had reported negative product license growth in 10 of the prior 12 quarters. Under his leadership, Informatica streamlined its operations by cutting its analytic application software development and focusing on the data warehousing component of its business.[24] The decision was controversial at the time with resistance among employees and on the board,[25] but Abbasi refocused the company on a narrower set of products, while evangelizing the broader use of data integration across the enterprise. The company grew its core market, eventually increasing its revenue from $219 million in fiscal 2004 to $455 million in 2008. Informatica's 20 percent growth rate over this period was 2.5 times the average for the software industry.

During the recession, Abbasi urged the company's salespeople to focus on smaller business-critical deals rather than waiting to close bigger ones that might not materialize. The company concluded 2009 with $456 million in sales with an increase in revenue for each of the first three quarters of the year. Abbasi led the company through the recession with it experiencing 10 percent revenue growth and 20 percent non-GAAP net income growth, while non-GAAP operating margins expanded 3% to an annual record 25%.[26] The company's growth also allowed hiring and expansion to continue through the recession.[17]

In 2010, Informatica reached a revenue of $650 million a nearly 300% increase over the revenue the company had experienced when Abbasi became CEO and a 31% increase from the year before. That same year Abbasi helped the company to grow its sales outside of North America to 36% of its business.[27]

In 2014, after ten years of Abbasi's leadership, Informatica reached $1 billion in sales.[28] In April 2015, Informatica announced that shareholders had approved the acquisition by Permira funds and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for $5.3 billion or roughly $48 a share.[29][30][31] After the deal was completed, Abbasi stepped down as CEO and remained with the company as chairman.[30] During his tenure as CEO the company's customer base increased from around 2,100 in 2004,[32] to over 5,000 in 2014, employee count during this same time grew from 837[33] to 3,664.[34] The company's annual profitability increased by over 850 percent and its stock appreciated over 800 percent during the same time period.[27]

Philanthropy

In 2003, Abbasi and his wife, Sara, created a $2.5 million endowment for a program in Islamic studies at Stanford University.[35] The program included graduate fellowships, research, a new library, stronger language courses at advanced levels, and regular public events such as lectures by eminent scholars. At the same time, Stanford alumna Lysbeth Warren made a gift of US$2 million for a new professorship on Islam. Stanford matched both gifts with a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, bringing the total endowment for the program and professorship to US$9 million.[36]

The Abbasis established the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Professorship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to help the university maintain its position as a national leader in computer science. They also founded the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Computer Science Fellowship to allow students, preferably from Pakistan, to attend the institution.[37][38]

Abbasi also played a key role in establishing the Oracle Academic Initiative in Pakistan, which has trained hundreds of professionals.[39]

Recognition

During his tenure with Informatica, Abbasi received several awards for his performance. Abbasi won the Chairman of the Year Award from the American Business Awards in 2010[40] and was ranked second by Institutional Investor's annual survey of software company CEO's in 2010 and 2011.[41][42] In 2013, Bloomberg ranked Abbasi second on its Top 20 list of technology leaders.[43] In 2014, according to Forbes, Abbasi was one of the top 5 best CEOs to work for in the Enterprise Software business in 2014.[44]

Notes
  1. Novet, Jordan (6 August 2015). "Informatica completes $5.3B deal to go private; CEO Sohaib Abbasi Steps Down; Microsoft and Salseforce Ventures Invest". Venture Beat. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  2. "Sohaib Abbasi's Tribute to the World-Class Informatica Team -Current and Former Members". Informatica. 14 December 2015. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  3. "SEC Form S-3". Nasdaq. 9 July 2004. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  4. "Hall of Fame: Sohaib Abbasi". University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  5. "Executive Profile:Sohaib Abbasi". Bloomberg Business. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  6. Greenberg, Andy (14 October 2009). "Ten Minutes That Mattered: Sohaib Abbasi". Forbes. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  7. O'Hara, Kristy (2010). "Focused On a Vision". 3 (3). Smart Business Northern California: 10–13. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. "Red Hat Names Informatica CEO, Professor to Board". Bloomberg Business. 28 March 2011. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  9. "New Relic Appoints Sohaib Abbasi and James Tolonen to Its Board of Directors". Yahoo! Finance. May 4, 2016. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
  10. "StreamSets Appoints Ex-CEO of Informatica Sohaib Abbasi to its Board of Directors".
  11. Bailey, Brandon (22 January 2010). "Mercury News Interview:Sohaib Abbasi of Informatica". Mercury News. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  12. "Informatica". Nasdaq. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  13. "Sohaib Abbasi, 2012 College of Engineering Commencement Address". Engineering Illinois. 1 June 2012. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  14. "International Action Center Observers Describe Situation in Palestine". Southern California Chronicle. February 2001. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  15. Brown, Erika (18 March 2006). "Informatica's Chief Integrator". Forbes. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  16. Schauer, Jean (2005). "A Singular Focus". 15 (9). DM Review: 20–22. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  17. Hoge, Patrick (25 March 2011). "Informatica Rises With Data". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  18. Bozman, Jean (29 October 1990). "Users Praise Oracle's Order-Form Software". Computerworld. p. 38. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  19. Evers, Joris (20 February 2003). "Oracle tools vice president to retire". InfoWorld. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  20. Khan, Avub (22 January 2009). "Sohaib Abbasi- A Role Model to Emulate". Muslim Observer. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  21. Pastore, Richard (30 October 1989). "Oracle Tools Stress Interface Portability". Computerworld. Vol. 23 no. 44. p. 14.
  22. Richman, Dan (27 November 1995). "DBMS Fix". Computerworld. Vol. 29 no. 48. p. 1,16.
  23. "Sohaib Abbasi Executive Profile". Find The Company. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  24. "Doubling Down on Data". Chief Executive Magazine. 20 November 2009. Archived from the original on 18 November 2012. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  25. Greenberg, Andy (16 September 2009). "The Big Deal: Informatica's Sohaib Abbasi". Forbes. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  26. "Stevie Award Nomination of Sohaib Abbasi". The American Business Awards. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  27. "Sohaib Abbasi doubled Informatica's revenues in five years". Smart Business. 26 September 2010. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  28. Digna, Larry (11 August 2014). "Informatica CEO Abbasi On Data, Scale, Leadership and Innovation". ZDNet. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  29. "Informatica Closes Deal To Go Private; Microsoft and Salesforce Are Strategic Investors". Venture Capital Post. 10 August 2015. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  30. Konrad, Alex (6 August 2015). "Microsoft and Salesforce Join In $5.3 Billion Buyout of Informatica". Forbes. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  31. Tan, Gillian; Cimilluca, Dana (7 April 2015). "Informatica Taken Private in $5.3 Billion Deal". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  32. "Informatica Reports Third Quarter Revenues of $52.4 Million". Informatica. 19 October 2004. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  33. "Form 10-K SEC Filing". Informatica. 2004. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  34. "Form 10-K SEC Filing". Informatica. 26 February 2015. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  35. "Abbasi family endows new Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford". Stanford News Service. Stanford. 18 September 2013. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  36. "Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies". Stanford Bulletin. Stanford. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  37. "Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Professorship in Computer Science". Computer Science at Illinois. University of Illinois. Archived from the original on 7 August 2013. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  38. "Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Computer Science Fellowship". Computer Science at Illinois. University of Illinois. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  39. Twair, Pat and Samir (January 2001). "International Action Center Observers Describe Situation in Palestine". Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Southern California Chronicle. pp. 59–61. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  40. "Management Categories - 2010 Honorees". The American Business Awards. 2010. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  41. "Informatica Executives Named to 2011 Institutional Investor's All-america Software Executive Team". Informatica. 20 January 2011. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  42. "Informatica Executive Paul Hoffman Wins Stevie Award for Global Sales Leader in 2010 Sales & Customer Service Awards". Informatica. 24 February 2010. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  43. Chan, Marcus (17 October 2013). "Tech's Top Turnaround Artists". Bloomberg. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  44. Columbus, Louis (18 March 2014). "The Best Enterprise Software Companies and CEOs to Work for in 2014". Forbes. Retrieved 4 January 2016.

Further reading
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