Diane Greene

The Technical Leadership ABIE Award recognizes women technologists who demonstrate leadership through their contributions to technology and achievements in increasing the representation of women in tech. This year’s winner is Diane Greene, one of the most iconic technology leaders of the last 20 years.

Diane’s innovation and leadership, including building one of the most well-known innovations of IT, are absolutely outstanding. She stands among the ranks of the tech giants of industry, almost all of whom are men (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and so on). Diane holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Vermont, a Master of Science in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering from MIT, and a Master of Science in Computer Science from UC Berkeley.

Early in her career, Diane designed offshore oil structures, systems, and containers for the shipping and ocean exploration industry. She then went on to become a software engineer, parlaying her talents into the founding and creation of several successful companies, the most notable of which is VMware.

VMware created the market for virtualization. Diane founded the company and oversaw all aspects of it as CEO, from inception to almost a $2 billion revenue run-rate, 6,000 employees, operations in over 140 countries, and over 1 million customers (130,000 of which were enterprise customers). In 2007, Diane took the company public, which later sold to EMC. She left in 2008 and went on to create BeBob Technologies in 2012, which she sold to Google in 2015 for almost $400 million. She now leads Google’s cloud business, which is poised to surpass the rest of Google in revenue in short order.

Diane currently serves on the Boards of Google, Intuit, and Khan Academy. She is a lifetime member of the MIT Corporation Board of Trustees, a Member of Stanford University’s School of Engineering Advisory Board, and a Member of UC Berkeley’s School of Engineering Advisory Board.