Peter P. Gassner (born February 26, 1965) is the CEO and co-founder of Veeva, a company supporting processes in the

pharmaceutical industry The pharmaceutical industry is a medical industry that discovers, develops, produces, and markets pharmaceutical goods such as medications and medical devices. Medications are then administered to (or self-administered by) patients for curing ...

. With a net worth of US $5.25 billion, he is ranked 494th by ''

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician a ...

'' on the list of

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least 1,000,000,000, one billion units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. It is a sub-category of the concept of the ultr ...

s worldwide. He is a member of the

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

Zoom Video Communications Zoom Communications, Inc. (formerly Zoom Video Communications, Inc., commonly shortened to Zoom, and stylized as zoom) is an American communications technology company primarily known for the videoconferencing application Zoom. The company is ...

Early life

Gassner grew up in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

, the son of Swiss immigrants. His father owned a machine shop. Peter is the third of six children. When he was 8 years old, he worked as a paperboy. He later worked mowing lawns, in a restaurant, and then, in high school, he had a roofing business. In high school, he was also captain of the wrestling team. A math teacher recommended that he take a computer science class, which influenced his career. Gassner kept starting and stopping college, taking extended breaks in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, and

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

, where he worked as a trekking guide. When he was 21 years old, he was robbed of all his belongings while

hitchhiking Hitchhiking (also known as thumbing, autostop or hitching) is a means of transportation that is gained by asking individuals, usually strangers, for a ride in their car or other vehicle. The ride is usually, but not always, free. Signaling ...

through

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

. He earned a degree in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

from

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate degree programs and a variety of graduate and doctor ...

in 1989.

Career

Gassner worked on DB2 for

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

's Silicon Valley Lab. He also worked for

IBM Research IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American Multinational corporation, multinational information technology company. IBM Research is headquartered at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York ...

at the Almaden Research Center. Beginning at the age of 30, he worked for

PeopleSoft PeopleSoft, Inc. was a company that provided human resource management systems (HRMS), financial management solutions (FMS), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise performance management (EPM) softw ...

for 9 years as both Chief Architect and General Manager of PeopleTools. He then worked for

Salesforce.com Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and appl ...

as Senior Vice President of Technology. After 4 years of working at Salesforce, he saw an opportunity to offer software focused on life sciences built on Salesforce's platform. In 2007, along with Matt Wallach, Doug Ostler, and Mitch Wallace, he launched Veeva Systems, a software firm that serves life sciences companies.

Personal life

Gassner is married and has 2 sons. He lives in

Pleasanton, California Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the Amador Valley, it is an upscale suburb in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 79,871 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 cens ...

. He speaks

Thai language Thai,In or Central Thai (historically Siamese;Although "Thai" and "Central Thai" have become more common, the older term, "Siamese", is still used by linguists, especially when it is being distinguished from other Tai languages (Diller 2008:6 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gassner, Peter 1965 births American company founders American billionaires American chief executives Businesspeople from Portland, Oregon Living people Oregon State University alumni People from Pleasanton, California