Late Mr. Umang Gupta

(BT/CHE/1971)

Late Mr. Umang Gupta was an Indian entrepreneur, Silicon Valley CEO and former CEO of Keynote Systems. In 1997, he was conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for his outstanding achievements in Information technology & entrepreneurship. In 1971, he obtained his B.Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.




Profile

Late Mr. Gupta began his career in 1973 as a Systems Engineer in the data processing division of IBM Corporation. Soon, he rose to senior marketing management positions before leaving IBM. During his chequered career, he worked in several positions. He was the Director of Marketing for Magnuson Computers, a manufacturer of IBM plug-compatible mainframes. He then joined Oracle Corporation as their 17th employee and served as Vice President and General Manager of the Microcomputer Products Division through 1984. At Oracle he is credited with writing the first business plan for the company. Subsequently, he started Gupta Corporation (now known as Keynote Systems Inc.), co-funded by Bruce-Scott, a developer of the original Oracle DBMS.

In 1988, he co-authored the SQL programmers guide, an introductory to tutorial to the fundamental concepts, commands and keywords of SQL. Structured query language (SQL) is the brain child of Mr. Gupta and is today the de facto standard for all DBMS applications. He was a leading authority in the area of SQL database management using PC's LANs and main frame computers. He has written numerous papers and given many speeches on the topic in the United States and around the world.



Mr. Gupta is the former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Keynote Systems, Inc. He served in that capacity from December 1997 to August 2013. Keynote Systems is a Silicon Valley, California Company that employs approximately 500 people and had a revenue of $125.0 million in fiscal year 2013. The company develops and sells services, hardware and software to measure, test, assure and improve the quality of service of the Internet and of mobile communications. It was sold to Thoma Bravo, a private equity company in August 2013.

Achievements and Honors

  • Recipient of Distinguished Alumnus Award, 1997 by IIT Kanpur.
  • Asian Pacific Foundation Award for Civic Leadership and Philanthropy.
  • Member of the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific Center (APAC).
  • Board Member of the Peninsula Community Foundation, California, USA.
  • Board Chairman of the San Mateo County Historical Association.
  • Co-founder of the IIT Kanpur Foundation.
  • Global Board Chairman of PanIIT.