DJ Paoni vs Aneel Bhursi

DJ Paoni

CEO of Certinia

BIO: DJ Paoni leads Certinia’s mission to help organizations connect the front and back office with the leading customer-centric business suite on the Salesforce platform. Before joining Certinia, DJ served as President of SAP North America where he was responsible for driving strategy, profitability, and customer success in the US and Canada, overseeing more than 25,000 employees and 200,000 customer relationships. Prior to that, he held several positions at SAP, including Managing Director and Senior Vice President Midwest, General Manager and Senior Vice President North America Strategic Customers, and Regional Vice President of Sales. Additionally DJ is currently a Director at GENYOUth Foundation, which delivers impact through a range of national initiatives including in-school programs which promote student nutrition security, physical activity, and leadership. DJ graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communications and earned an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Aneel Bhursi

CEO of Workday

BIO: Aneel co-founded Workday with Dave Duffield in 2005 with a simple idea: build enterprise software that puts people at the center. Over the past two decades, he has helped guide the company from startup to one of the world’s leading enterprise AI platforms for managing people, money and agents. Throughout Workday’s journey, Aneel has served in a range of leadership roles, including co-CEO from 2009 to 2014 with co-founder Dave Duffield, CEO from 2014 to 2020, co-CEO from 2020 to 2024, and executive chair from 2024 to 2026. He has been a member of its board of directors since its founding. For over 25 years, Aneel has been a product visionary and leader in enterprise software. Before Workday, he held several leadership roles at PeopleSoft, including vice chair of the board and senior vice president responsible for product strategy, business development, and marketing. In addition to his role at Workday, Aneel is a member of the board of trustees at Stanford University and serves on the boards of the Workday Foundation, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Eat. Learn. Play. He has previously served on the boards of several public and private companies, including Cruise, General Motors, Intel, Okta, and Pure Storage. Aneel holds an MBA from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and economics from Brown University. He is a Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute.