Aneel Bhusri

Aneel Bhusri
Name	Aneel Bhusri
Birth date	1966
Birth place	Palo Alto, California
Occupation	Business executive, investor
Known for	Co-founder and CEO of Workday
Alma mater	Brown University, Stanford University

Aneel Bhusri is an American technology executive and investor known for co-founding and leading Workday, an enterprise software company specializing in human resources and financial management. He is noted for prior roles at PeopleSoft and Greylock Partners and for participation on several corporate and nonprofit boards. Bhusri's career intersects with prominent technology firms, venture capital firms, academic institutions, and philanthropic organizations.

Early life and education

Aneel Bhusri was born in Palo Alto, California and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area near hubs such as Silicon Valley and Stanford University. He attended Brown University, where he earned a degree in engineering, and later completed an MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business. During his formative years he was influenced by leaders at Intel Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle Corporation, and academic figures associated with MIT and Harvard University.

Career

Bhusri began his career in technology and enterprise software, holding positions at PeopleSoft where he worked alongside executives such as David Duffield and interacted with competitors like SAP SE and Oracle Corporation. After corporate experience, he joined Greylock Partners as a partner, engaging with portfolio companies including LinkedIn, Airbnb, Dropbox, Facebook, and Twitter. His venture background connected him to founders at Salesforce, Workday co-founders, Netsuite, and investors from firms like Sequoia Capital and Benchmark.

Work at Workday

As co-founder and chief executive at Workday, Bhusri led the company through product development, market entry, and public offering, competing with incumbents such as Oracle Corporation, SAP SE, ADP, and challengers like Ultimate Software. Under his leadership Workday expanded into areas involving human capital management, financial planning, analytics, and cloud infrastructure, partnering with providers including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and consulting firms like Accenture, Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG. He navigated corporate actions including acquisitions of companies similar to Adaptive Insights and engagements with investors from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, and BlackRock. Workday's strategic initiatives placed it among peers such as ServiceNow, Intuit, Oracle NetSuite, and Cornerstone OnDemand.

Board memberships and investments

Bhusri has served on corporate and nonprofit boards, linking him to institutions like Intel Corporation, Salesforce, Palo Alto Networks, LinkedIn, Snowflake, Zoom Video Communications, and universities such as Brown University and Stanford University. His investment activities through venture capital and angel rounds connected him to startups backed by Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Greylock Partners' portfolio including Cloudera, DataRobot, Okta, Splunk, and Zendesk. He has interacted with philanthropic and policy organizations such as The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Brookings Institution, and industry groups including Gartner and Forrester Research.

Awards and recognition

Bhusri's leadership has been recognized by business publications and industry awards, with mentions in outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC, Businessweek, The Economist, and Harvard Business Review. Workday's performance under his tenure led to placements on lists compiled by Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, Forbes Cloud 100, Inc. 5000, and rankings by Glassdoor and LinkedIn Top Companies. He has been invited to speak at conferences hosted by Oracle OpenWorld, Dreamforce, SXSW, Web Summit, and World Economic Forum meetings in Davos.

Personal life and philanthropy

Outside of business, Bhusri is involved in philanthropic efforts and community initiatives, contributing to causes associated with Brown University, Stanford University, diversity and inclusion programs linked to National Center for Women & Information Technology, and education-focused nonprofits such as DonorsChoose and Khan Academy. He participates in cultural and civic institutions including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Stanford Hospital, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, and regional initiatives in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley. Bhusri's network connects him with entrepreneurs, investors, and civic leaders from organizations like TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and Startup Grind.

Category:American chief executives Category:Brown University alumni Category:Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni