David (Dave) A. Duffield

Co-founder of PeopleSoft, where PeopleSoft V1 (late 1980s) was the first fully integrated, robust client–server HRMS application suite, Duffield is an American businessman in the software industry. He has also served as co-founder and co-CEO at Workday, Inc., and has appeared on the Forbes World's Richest People list. He received a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering and an M.B.A. from Cornell University, and has been the benefactor behind Duffield Hall, a nanoscale science (or nanotechnology) and engineering facility at Cornell.

Duffield established two mainframe application software companies. He served as 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.

He co-founded PeopleSoft in 1987 with Ken Morris and served as the company's CEO and Board Chairman. PeopleSoft was originally headquartered in Walnut Creek, California before moving to Pleasanton, California. Duffield envisioned a client–server version of Integral Systems' popular mainframe HRMS package. PeopleSoft version 1, released in the late 1980s, was the first fully integrated, robust client–server HRMS application suite.

The company expanded its product range to include a financials module in 1992, distribution in 1994, and manufacturing in 1996 after the acquisition of Red Pepper. Its sole venture backing came from IBM, and it 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, a company that provides financial management and human capital management software delivered in a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. The company was headquartered in Pleasanton, California, and employed approximately 1,000 people in 2011, with both he and Bhusri serving as co-CEOs. Duffield has also served as the company's Chief Customer Advocate.

He is also known for his philanthropic activities on behalf of animals. Duffield and his wife, Cheryl, created Maddie's Fund in 1999 to support the No-Kill effort. Maddie's Fund is named for their Miniature Schnauzer, Maddie, and carried an endowment of $300 million.