Francisco D’Souza (born August 23, 1968) is the Chief Executive Officer of Cognizant and was part of the founding team of the NASDAQ-100 listed company in 1994. In 2007, at the age of 38, he succeeded Lakshmi Narayanan as CEO after Narayanan was promoted to Vice Chairman. D’Souza has held the role since January 2007 and is considered one of the youngest CEOs in the software services industry.
D’Souza, a person of Indian origin from Goa and a native Konkani speaker, was born in Nairobi, Kenya. His father, Placido D’Souza (born 1933 in Anjuna, Goa), served in the Indian Foreign Service and held diplomatic positions as Consul General in New York and High Commissioner in Port of Spain, Hong Kong, and Nairobi. His mother was Sushila. He has three sisters: Jacinta, Lucia, and Maria, one of the early contributors to GoaNet, an online community for Goans worldwide.
Francisco D’Souza earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of East Asia in Macau, followed by an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
D’Souza joined Cognizant in 1996. He was appointed Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors on January 1, 2007. In this role, he oversees the company’s business development and operations and works closely with Cognizant clients to manage large-scale software development and maintenance projects.
Before becoming CEO, he served in several leadership roles within Cognizant. From December 2003, he held the position of Chief Operating Officer. Prior to that, between November 1999 and December 2003, he was Senior Vice President for North American Operations and Business Development. From March 1998 to November 1999, he served as Vice President of North American Operations and Business Development. Between June 1997 and March 1998, he was Director of North American Operations and Business Development. His career at Cognizant began in January 1996 as a consultant.