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Michael Capellas

Michael Capellas
Chairman and CEO
VCE, The Virtual Computing Environment Company

Michael Capellas, a 30-year IT veteran, is viewed as one of the leading technology thought leaders of our time, with a career that has spanned from semiconductors to advanced application design.

His spent the first 18 years of his career at Schlumberger where he was involved in such pioneering areas as the first fiber optic cable for high speed transmission of geophysical data, early development of massively parallel computing models and global deployments of satellite networks. Michael was the company’s first head of IT, a position he held for five years.

After Schlumberger, Michael held executive positions at SAP and later Oracle where he lead sales and development. Following Oracle, he went to Compaq where he held the positions of CIO, COO and ultimately Chairman and CEO.

As CEO of Compaq, he transformed the predominantly PC company into being the world’s largest server company and incubated the broad adoption of server blade technology. He became the President of HP after the merger between Compaq and HP.

In 2002, he was recruited by Worldcom’s Board to restructure the company following its bankruptcy filing. He oversaw the transition of the company from the second largest carrier of long distance to the world’s largest carrier of IP traffic. In 2004 the company emerged from bankruptcy and was relisted on the NASDAQ under the name MCI. Worldcom remains to this day, the largest turnaround story in corporate history. He left MCI after the wave of mass consolidation in telecom industry with SBC acquiring AT&T and Verizon acquiring MCI.

Since then, Michael has been a senior advisor to private equity firm Silver Lake and most recently served as Chairman and CEO of First Data Corporation, a global leader in payments and electronic commerce.

Michael has been a member of The Cisco board since January 2006 and currently chairs the acquisition and investment committees.

In his spare time, he applies his love of technology to helping children in need. A seven year member of the national board of the Boys and Girls Club, he fostered the roll-out of computer centers in more 5,000 Boys & Girls Clubs across the US. He is also a recipient of the Hope Technology Award given by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for his work in utilizing technology to increase the recovery rate of missing children.

Currently Michael is chairman and CEO of VCE, The Virtual Computing Environment Company, and serves as a senior advisor to KKR and Deutsche Bank.