Francis deSouza

Francis Aurelio deSouza (; born December 2, 1970) is an American entrepreneur and business executive. He is the chief executive officer of Scale AI and a member of the board of directors of Deel Inc.

He was previously chief operating officer and president of security products at Google Cloud. Before that he co-founded SynthLabs and prior to that was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Illumina. Before Illumina, deSouza was president of products and services at Symantec. He joined Symantec in 2006 when Symantec acquired IMlogic, where deSouza was founder and CEO. Prior to IMlogic, deSouza worked at Microsoft from 1998 to 2001 after Microsoft acquired Flash Communications, where deSouza was co-founder and CEO.

Personal life He was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to a mother of Ethiopian and Greek descent, Elpinki, and an Indian father of Konkani descent, Domingos. He was the second of five children. 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. and was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 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.

Career Early in his career, he worked at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center and then in management consulting.

Flash Communications In 1997 DeSouza co-founded and was CEO of Flash Communications, a provider of corporate instant messaging that was acquired by Microsoft in 1998.

IMlogic DeSouza left Microsoft in 2001 and founded IMlogic, where he was CEO and grew the company into the market leading provider of instant messaging security.

Symantec DeSouza joined Symantec through the company's acquisition of IMlogic in February 2006.

Illumina DeSouza was appointed president of Illumina, Inc. in November 2013, leading the company in envisioning, developing, and producing products. In 2016, he was also appointed CEO. On June 11, 2023, DeSouza announced that he was leaving Illumina.

SynthLabs DeSouza co-founded SynthLabs in July 2023, a startup developing technology for an auditable, transparent and robust AI alignment platform. SynthLabs' investors include Microsoft's M12 and First Spark Ventures. and Citrix Systems from December 2014 to June 2016.

Accolades and recognition

Top CEOs 2019 on Glassdoor Top CEOs 2018 on Glassdoor Top Businesspersons of the Year #10 on Fortune global list of (2018)