Masami Yamamoto: Steering A Technology Juggernaut

Masami Yamamoto has been the president of Fujitsu Ltd. since April 1, 2010. Prior to that he was the Corporate Senior Executive Vice President until April 1, 2010. Yamamoto also served as Corporate Senior Vice President since June 22, 2007. Other positions he held includes as Corporate Vice President of Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited. He also serves as Director of Fujitsu Technology Solutions (Holding) B.V. Yamamoto has also been Representative Director of Fujitsu Limited since June 2010.

Yamamoto holds a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Kyushu University. This degree comes in handy with the kind of company he is heading. Fujitsu is a top information and communication technology (ICT) company. It provides a wide range of technology products, solutions and services. Fujitsu employs around 170,000 people in over 100 countries. The firm reported consolidated revenues of $47 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013.

The firm is among the world’s top five provider of servers. It has around 97,000 patents worldwide and Fortune magazine has named the company one of “the World’s Most Admired Companies’ in 2013. It’s one impressive technology juggernaut that Yamamoto is heading.

A Spot On Career

Some people take a course in college and wind up having a career in a totally different field. For Charlene Begley her career path has been spot on. She obtained her bachelor of science in business administration from the School of Business Administration, University of Vermont in 1988.

That same year she joined GE and her career has been following an upward trajectory ever since. Begley has been assigned and promoted through a number of leadership roles such as vice president for GE Corporate Audit Staff, and president and CEO of a number of GE businesses including GE FANUC Automation, Transportation, Plastics, and Enterprise Solutions.

Begley is now the president and CEO of GE Home & Business Solutions and senior vice president and CIO of GE. On its own GE Home & Business Solutions is a very large enterprise that encompasses business teams of Appliances & Lighting and Intelligent Platforms.  It is a global $8.6 billion business.

Information technology has been looming large in the world of business and its influence has been truly significant; having created such giants as Google which is now a very dominant company.  How information technology is leveraged can be a game changer.  Thus Begley holds a very important position as CIO being responsible for GE’s Information Technology organization.

Begley has spot on career with huge responsibilities and a promising future ahead.

David Duffield’s Milestones in IT

The information technology (IT) industry gave many people opportunities to reach the pinnacle of success. Some of the richest and most highly-regarded entrepreneurs attained wealth through their innovations in this forward-thinking business. One of them is David Duffield, PeopleSoft co-founder and former chairman.

Duffield entered the IT industry when innovation and competition were in full swing. He graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor’s degree in engineering and a Master’s degree in business administration. After completing his higher studies, he worked at IBM. Capitalizing on his skills and experiences, Duffield quit his job to form his first company, Information Associates. He made a business producing systems for higher learning. He also formed another company before proceeding to create PeopleSoft in 1987.

As the backbone of the company, Duffield used his visions to make things happen. Eventually his co-founder stepped away from PeopleSoft, leaving him to fulfill the responsibilities they were supposed to share. He assumed the position of CEO a couple of times before settling as chairman. His leadership made PeopleSoft the second-largest software company in the United States before it was sold to Oracle in January 2005. He later admitted that the ten billion dollar hostile takeover took a toll on him as well as his colleagues in the company.

However, losing PeopleSoft did not lead Duffield to lose his vision. He bounced back to business in 2007, challenging industry giants Oracle and SAP AG with Workday, producer of on-demand software that allows customers to manage business tasks via the Internet. His fifth startup also faced the challenges posed by the brutally competitive and crowded marketplace, but he managed to persuade even the most risk-averse corporations to take their chances with him.

With quite a number of feathers in his hat, Duffield is considered as one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, as well as the richest. His long streak of success is bound to continue for many years.