Early Life
Aneel Bhusri was born on February 14, 1966, in Pittsford, New York, to an Indian-American family of Punjabi descent. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and economics from Brown University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. His first job after college was as a corporate finance analyst at Morgan Stanley.
Rise to Success
In 1993, Bhusri joined PeopleSoft as the director of planning. He became Vice Chairman in 1999, responsible for product strategy and marketing. In 2005, Bhusri co-founded Workday with David Duffield, with funding from Greylock Partners. Workday, a cloud-based software company, launched its first application, Workday Human Capital Management, in 2006. Under his leadership, Workday has grown to serve over 65% of Fortune 500 companies. Aneel served as co-CEO from 2009-2014 with David Duffield, CEO from 2014-2020 and co-CEO from 2020-2024. He is now the Executive Chair.
Key Business Strategies
Key business strategies include Workday's focus on delivering solutions via the cloud and its commitment to investing in research and development. Workday has invested significantly in AI and has expanded its offerings through acquisitions, such as Adaptive Insights in 2018.
Philanthropy
Bhusri joined the Giving Pledge in 2018, committing to donate the majority of his wealth to philanthropic causes. In April 2020, he donated $1 million to the Give2SF fund to help residents and businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
