Jeff Tarr vs Aneel Bhursi

Jeff Tarr

CEO of Skillsoft

BIO: Jeff Tarr is Chief Executive Officer of Skillsoft and brings a successful track record of building tech-enabled services companies into trusted industry leaders. Over the last two decades, he has transformed three publicly traded, tech-enabled information companies into industry leaders. He previously served as Chief Executive Officer and a director of DigitalGlobe, the world leader in satellite imagery and geospatial intelligence, from 2011 until the sale of the company to MDA (now Maxar Technologies) in 2017. Prior to DigitalGlobe, Jeff was President and Chief Operating Officer of IHS (now IHS Markit) and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the publicly traded business information company, Hoover’s, Inc. (now a division of D&B). He began his career with Bain & Company. Jeff currently serves on the boards of EchoStar and DSST Public Schools, one of the leading open enrollment school systems in the United States. He is also a member of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business Advisory Council and was previously Chairman of the school’s Management Board. Jeff served on the board of The Corporate Executive Board Company (CEB) until the sale of the company to Gartner in 2017. He also served as co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Council on the Future of Space Technologies and co-Chair of the Annual Meeting of New Champions in Dalian China. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Jeff holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.

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.