David Duffield
Encyclopedia
PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft, Inc. was a company that provided Human Resource Management Systems , Financial Management Solutions , Supply Chain and customer relationship management software, as well as software solutions for manufacturing, enterprise performance management, and student administration to large...
, the co-founder and co-CEO at Workday, Inc., and has been on the Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
World's Richest People list. Duffield received a bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in electrical engineering and an MBA
Master of Business Administration
The Master of Business Administration is a :master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out...
from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, and is the benefactor behind Duffield Hall, a nanoscale science (or nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
) and engineering facility at Cornell.
Dave Duffield founded PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft, Inc. was a company that provided Human Resource Management Systems , Financial Management Solutions , Supply Chain and customer relationship management software, as well as software solutions for manufacturing, enterprise performance management, and student administration to large...
in 1987 and served as the company’s CEO and board chairman. PeopleSoft grew to be the world’s second-largest application software company before being acquired by Oracle in January 2005.
In March 2005, Duffield and former PeopleSoft vice chair and head of product strategy, Aneel Bhusri, started Workday
Workday
Workday may refer to:* A day in the workweek.* Working time, the period of time an individual spends at paid occupational labor* Workday, Inc., a business software company...
, a company that provides ERP software delivered in a Software as a Service (SaaS
Saas
SAAS is an abbreviation for* Social Accountability Accreditation Services* Software as a service * Student Awards Agency for Scotland* Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences* South Australian Ambulance Service...
) model. The company is headquartered in Pleasanton, Calif., and employed approximately 1,000 people in 2011, with Duffield and Bhusri serving as co-CEOs at Workday. Duffield is also the company's chief customer advocate.
Earlier in his career, Duffield established two mainframe application software companies. He was CEO, chairman, and chief product architect at Integral Systems, the first company to offer DB2-based human resource and accounting systems. He also co-founded Information Associates, which specialized in applications for the higher education market. He began his career at IBM as a marketing representative and systems engineer.
Duffield is also known for his philanthropic activities on behalf of animals. Dave Duffield and his wife, Cheryl, created Maddie's Fund in 1999 to support the No-kill
No-kill Shelter
A kill shelter is an animal shelter where animals are euthanized if they are too sick to be treated or too aggressive to be suitable for adoption or due to lack of shelter space...
effort. Maddie's Fund is named for their Miniature Schnauzer
Miniature Schnauzer
The Miniature Schnauzer is a breed of small dog of the Schnauzer type that originated in Germany in the mid-to-late 19th century. Miniature Schnauzers developed from crosses between the Standard Schnauzer and one or more smaller breeds such as the Poodle and Affenpinscher.The breed remains one of...
, Maddie. The fund has an endowment of $300 million.