David Duffield

David Duffield
David Duffield (2005)
Born	1941 (age 75–76)
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Cornell University
Occupation	Chairman of Workday, Inc.
Net worth	US$4.4 billion (June 2016)

David Duffield (born 1941) is an American businessman in the software industry. He is the co-founder and former chairman of PeopleSoft, the co-founder and co-CEO at Workday, Inc., and has been on the Forbes World's Richest People list.

Duffield received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and an MBA from Cornell University, and is the benefactor behind Duffield Hall, a nanoscale science (or nanotechnology) and engineering facility at Cornell. While at Cornell, Duffield was a member of Beta Theta Pi.

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 founded PeopleSoft 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, Inc., a company that provides financial management and human capital management software delivered in a software as a service (SaaS) model. The company is headquartered in Pleasanton, California, 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.

Duffield is also known for his philanthropic activities on behalf of animals. In 1994, Duffield and his wife, Cheryl, established Maddie's Fund, originally named the Duffield Family Foundation. In January 1999, the Board of Directors restructured the foundation, defined its mission, and adopted the current name. The organization is named after Maddie, a Miniature Schnauzer who was the Duffields source of unconditional love and friendship for ten years, and a "lighthouse during the stormy period" of the couple's work careers. Maddie died of cancer in 1997, and Duffield acted on his earlier promise to his pet, "If we ever make some money, I promise we will give it back to you and your kind so others can be as happy as we are today."