SuccessFactors Founder Lars Dalgaard Signs Up with Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz snagged SAP’s famed cloud boss to inject more synergy into its investment operations and boost entrepreneurs’ leadership mojo. Ben Horowitz blogged the news on Thursday.
Lars Dalgaard has an impressive resume. SAP brought him on board to head its Cloud Business and serve on its Executive Board and Global Managing Board after it acquired SuccessFactors for $3.5 billion, the most anyone ever paid for a software-as-a-service firm. Dalgaard is credited as the mastermind behind the cloud HR vendor: he founded it in 2001, took the reins as CEO and led it to earnings of $364 million in annual revenue.
Before his entry into the cloud space, Dalgaard spent four years working for a Danish subsidiary of consumer goods giant Unilever. He speaks seven languages and holds a B.A. from Copenhagen Business School and an M.S. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Dalgaard quit as the head of SAP’s Cloud Business to become a full-time General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, but he retains his seat on the company’s board. Ben Horowitz elaborated on the hire in an interview with All Things Digital’s Arik Hesseldahl:
“The general partner’s role is focused on whether or not you can help the founder develop into a CEO,” he said. “So he’ll have the freedom to look at a lot of categories. His experience at Unilever gives him sharp insight into how you build up a consumer products brand.”
Earlier this month, flash juggernaut Fusion-io appointed Pankaj Mehra, the former head
of development at Compaq, as its new worldwide CTO. Mehra has a formidable track record in both the business world and academia: he’s earned PhD, founded a Big Startup and co-authored three books and 20 patents.
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