Gerald Held joins Informatica's Board of Directors

Wednesday, 03 December 2008 04:48

Informatica Corporation (NASDAQ: INFA) the leading independent provider of data integration software, today announced that industry veteran Dr. Gerald (Jerry) Held has joined the company’s board of directors. Held is currently the CEO of Held Consulting, LLC, where he is a consultant to CEOs and senior leaders from startup companies to large multinational corporations and investment firms. “With more than 30 years experience, Jerry is an industry visionary whose knowledge will be invaluable to Informatica,” said Sohaib Abbasi, chairman and chief executive officer, Informatica. “Jerry’s insights will help advance our technology leadership for our customers to gain a competitive advantage from all their information assets.”  

Recently, Held has served on a number of public and private boards including Business Objects. In 1998 he was chief executive officer in-residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers venture capital firm. Prior to those positions, Held was senior vice president of Oracle’s Server Product division, where he led Oracle’s database business during Oracle’s rapid growth from US$1.5 billion to US$6 billion in annual revenues. Before joining Oracle, he spent 18 years at Tandem Computers, where he served in several roles on the executive team that grew Tandem from a startup to a US$2 billion company. Held was responsible for leading the initial development of Tandem’s relational database products.

“In today’s macroeconomic environment, organisations increasingly rely on trustworthy data,” said Held. “Informatica is recognised as the world’s leading independent provider of data integration solutions. I welcome this unique opportunity to assist Informatica in furthering the company’s leadership and role in the industry.”

Held received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University, a master’s degree in systems engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in computer science, where he led the initial development of the INGRES rational database management systems. He also attended the Stanford Business School’s Executive Program.

Dr. Held also serves as executive chairman of Vertica Systems and Software Development Technologies and is a board member of Openwave Systems. He is vice chairman of The Tech Museum of Innovation and a member of the board of trustees of Montalvo Arts Center.