Background
He was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and before he was 5, his family moved to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
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Francis DeSouza
Edit ProfileEducation
He graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992 with Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a minor in Economics.
Career
In 1987, at age 16, he was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and moved to the United States. Early in his career, he worked at the International Business Machines Corporation Thomas J. Watson Research Center and then in management consulting. Following the acquisition, deSouza joined Microsoft and became a product unit manager where he led the team responsible for the development of the company"s enterprise real-time collaboration offerings, including instant messaging, chat, Voice over Intellectual Property and NetMeeting. deSouza next founded IMlogic, where he served as Chief Executive Officer and grew the company into the market leading provider of instant messaging security. deSouza joined Corporation through the company’s acquisition of IMlogic in February 2006.
DeSouza served as President of Products and Services at until November 11, 2013.
He led research, product management, engineering, customer support and operations for ’s offerings, which generated $6.73 billion in revenue in FY11. Before assuming this role, Francis was Group President, of "s Enterprise Products and Services.
On November 11, 2013, deSouza was announced as President of, headquartered in San Diego. He leads Illumina"s business units and the core functions responsible for developing, marketing, selling and supporting the company"s products.
On March 7, 2016 announced that deSouza will be appointed President and Chief Executive Officer on July 5, 2016, and will continue to serve on the Illumina Board of Directors.
DeSouza holds a number of patents in computer security and, as a recognized security expert, he has been widely quoted in the press including the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and Fox Business. deSouza was named to Fast Company"s debut list of Fast 50 Champions of Innovation, was a finalist for the 2003 Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year Award, named to the Boston Business Journal"s 5th annual 40 under 40 list, and selected for Silicon Valley Business Journal"s 40 Under 40 list in 2007.
Achievements
Membership
He is also a member of Illumina"s Board of Directors. In addition to his work at Illumina, deSouza is a member of the Board of Directors of Citrix Systems.
