Songnian Zhou

Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and Co-Founder

Songnian received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987, and subsequently took a faculty position at the University of Toronto as a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Songnian's Ph.D. thesis established the field of distributed resource management, which provides the foundation for grid computing, hailed by industry experts as the next evolution of IT.

This research was the catalyst for the creation of Platform Computing, which he co-founded with two partners in 1992. Under Songnian's leadership, Platform has grown from a company of three employees to 400-strong, with 15 offices around the globe.

Songnian has been recognized for his excellence in leadership and innovation with the Ernst & Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2002. In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and received the Innovation Award for Leadership in Product Development from the Information Technology Research Centre (ITRC) of Ontario for Platform LSF in 1995.