| Francis deSouza | |
| Birth Name: | Francis Aurelio deSouza |
| Birth Date: | 2 December 1970 |
| Birth Place: | Addis Ababa, Ethiopia |
| Education: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (S.B./S.M.) |
| Occupation: | Entrepreneur and business executive |
| Years Active: | 1991–present |
| Employer: | SynthLabs, formerly Illumina, Symantec, IMLogic, Microsoft, Flash |
Francis Aurelio deSouza (; born December 2, 1970) is an American entrepreneur and business executive. He is co-founder of SynthLabs, and a member of the Board of Directors of Deel Inc. [1]
He was previously the chief executive officer (CEO) of Illumina.[2] [3] Before Illumina, deSouza was president of products and services at Symantec.[4] [5] He joined Symantec in 2006 when Symantec acquired IMlogic, where deSouza was founder and CEO.[6] Prior to IMlogic, deSouza worked at Microsoft from 1998 to 2001 after Microsoft acquired Flash Communications, where deSouza was co-founder and CEO.[7]
He was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to a mother of Ethiopian and Greek descent, Elpinki, and an Indian father, Domingos. He was the second of five children.[8] His mother was a homemaker and his father was a commercial representative for Japanese trading company Itochu. Before he was 5, his family moved to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.[9]
In 1987, at age 16, he graduated from St. Mary's Catholic High School, Dubai, UAE[10] and was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[11] He graduated Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu and Sigma Xi from MIT in 1992 with Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and computer science and a minor in economics.[12]
Desouza was divorced in 2017 and has 2 children. Desouza invested in bitcoin in 2013 and the division of their cryptocurrency assets in the divorce became a subject of dispute, drawing attention to how cryptocurrency assets are treated in divorce.[13] [14]
Early in his career, he worked at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center and then in management consulting.[15]
In 1997 DeSouza co-founded and was CEO of Flash Communications, a provider of corporate instant messaging that was acquired by Microsoft in 1998.[16]
Following Microsoft's acquisition of Flash, 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 IP and NetMeeting.[17]
DeSouza left Microsoft in 2001 and founded IMlogic, where he was CEO[18] and grew the company into the market leading provider of instant messaging security.[19]
DeSouza joined Symantec through the company's acquisition of IMlogic in February 2006.[20] DeSouza was president of products and services at Symantec until November 11, 2013.[21] [22] He led the research, product management, engineering, customer support and operations for Symantec's offerings, which generated $6.73 billion in revenue in FY11.[23]
DeSouza was appointed president of Illumina, Inc. in November 2013, leading the company in envisioning, developing, and producing products.[24] In 2016, he was also appointed CEO.[25] On June 11, 2023, DeSouza announced that he was leaving Illumina. [26]
DeSouza co-founded SynthLabs in July 2023, a startup developing technology for an auditable, transparent and robust AI alignment platform.[27] SynthLabs' investors include Microsoft's M12 and First Spark Ventures.[28]
deSouza is on the Board of Directors of Deel Inc.[29] He was on the Board of Directors of The Walt Disney Company from February 2018 to April 2024.[30] and Citrix Systems from December 2014 to June 2016.[31]