Sohaib Abbasi–A Role Model to Emulate

By Ayub Khan, MMNS

Sohaib Abbasi is one of those rare breed of men whose career success is paralleled by their philanthropic activities. A successful professional in Silicon Valley, he hasn’t forgotten his roots either.

Since 2004 he is the President and CEO of Informatica, a data integration company.  Prior to Informatica, Mr. Abbasi spent 20 years at Oracle Corporation where he was most recently a member of the Oracle’s executive committee and was senior vice president of two major divisions, Oracle Tools and Oracle Education.  Mr. Abbasi joined Oracle Corporation in 1982 when it was a 30-person startup and was instrumental in growing the business from $4 million in annual revenues to over $9 billion in revenues and over 42,000 employees worldwide.  As part of his contribution, Mr. Abbasi envisioned and launched the Oracle Tools business, which he grew from zero to $3.75 billion in cumulative license revenues.  Mr. Abbasi graduated with honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1980, where he earned both a B.S. and an M.S. in computer science.

In order to bridge the chasm that had developed between Islam and the West after the Sept.11 attacks the Pakistan born Mr.Abbasi and his wife, Sara, donated $2.5 million to establish the Islamic Studies program at Stanford University.

The Abbasis also support several educational institutions in Pakistan. Mrs.Abbasi is on the executive board of Developments in Literacy,www.dil.org, an international non-profit organization that has built 200 schools in Pakistan since 1997.

Most recently Mrs. Abbasi also contributed towards the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

11-5