Industry Advisory Council

Mark Leslie Ex-CEO, VERITAS Software Mark Leslie is a part-time Venture Partner at Azure Capital Partners. He is currently the managing director of Leslie Ventures, a private investment company. He is also an adjunct professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford University Graduate Engineering. Mark Leslie was the founding CEO of VERITAS Software. He joined the board of Directors of VERITAS Software in May of 1988, and became the Chairman, President and CEO when VERITAS was restarted as a software company in 1990. During Mark's tenure as CEO the company went from 12 employees to 5,500 employees deployed globally, and from a revenue base of $400,000 per year to $1,500,000,000 per year. In 2000 VERITAS was the tenth largest independent software company by revenue, third largest by market capitalization, and achieved the distinction of becoming a Fortune 1000 company. In November of 2000, upon the hiring of a new CEO, Mark relinquished the roles of President and CEO. In December of 2001 he stepped down as chairman and remains an active member of the company's board of directors. From 1980 until 1990 he served as president and chief executive officer of two Silicon Valley high- tech start up companies. Prior experience included OS programmer, systems engineer, sales and sales management in the computer industry. Mark currently serves on the boards of VERITAS Software, Avaya Corporation, Webex Communications and Vertex Venture Holdings and a number of privately held high-technology corporations, including Model N Software, OuterBay Software, PostX Corporation, and is on the boards of four non-profit organizations: Leslie Family Foundation, VERITAS Foundation, Community Foundation of Silicon Valley, and SDForum. He previously served on the board of directors of VMware. Mark received a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and mathematics from New York University in 1966 and completed Harvard Business School's program for management development in 1980.