In 2021, the unbiased judges for the GeekWire Awards nominated Samir Bodas as one of many finalists within the class of CEO of the Yr. He mentioned no thanks.
The co-founder of Icertis, one of many area’s most useful startups, requested to withdraw from consideration. “It’s an awesome honor and we recognize the assist,” his advertising and marketing chief defined in an e-mail on the time, “however we wish to stick with our coverage of staff vs particular person awards.”
His associates and colleagues will acknowledge the second as classic Samir — constructing and main a multibillion-dollar firm whereas insisting the highlight belonged elsewhere.
That’s one of many reminiscences resurfacing this week after the corporate introduced that Bodas handed away following a battle with most cancers. He was 61, and had stepped down as Icertis CEO final August, saying on the time that he deliberate to deal with his well being.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in an e-mail to GeekWire, described a friendship with Bodas that started greater than 30 years in the past once they have been each beginning out at Microsoft. They lived in the identical residence constructing close to the corporate’s Redmond campus.
“As a pacesetter, he was level-headed, took dangers, and had an entrepreneurial spirit that all of us admired,” Nadella mentioned. “And as a buddy, he was joyous, welcoming, and had a zest for all times that radiated to these round him. I genuinely liked each second I spent with him.”
The 2 joined Microsoft the identical yr, 1992. Bodas spent seven years there in gross sales and advertising and marketing roles. Nadella, in fact, by no means left, rising to grow to be CEO in 2014. However they stayed shut, finally changing into co-owners of the Seattle Orcas, the Main League Cricket franchise.
S. “Soma” Somasegar, the Madrona Enterprise Group managing director who was additionally a part of that Microsoft cohort and an Orcas co-owner, was an angel investor in Icertis.
“I had a entrance row seat to Samir and the way he constructed and scaled Icertis to what it’s at this time,” Somasegar mentioned. “All through the years, he would all the time say, ‘That is the factor that issues probably the most in my skilled life and I need to be doing this perpetually.’ Until the top, he lived that.”
When the group had an opportunity to deliver Main League Cricket to Seattle, Somasegar mentioned, Bodas jumped in with enthusiasm. “He was very vocal about this being one of many methods he wished to provide again to the Pacific Northwest neighborhood.”
His path to Seattle
Bodas was born in Pune, India, and got here to the USA in 1982 to attend the College of Texas at Austin, the place he earned a level in pc science. His first job was as a programmer at Nationwide Devices in Austin, the place he was worker No. 42.
“The startup bug bit me then, and incubated for 16 years,” Bodas instructed GeekWire in 2021, saying the expertise gave him a “deep appreciation of why grit, onerous work, smarts, timing, and eventually serendipity are important elements for startup success.”
After incomes an MBA from Wharton in 1992, he joined Microsoft and later ran two IT providers corporations — Disha Know-how and Aztecsoft — via speedy development and profitable exits.
In 2009, he met Monish Darda, a former BladeLogic govt, and the 2 based Icertis on the daybreak of cloud computing.
The Bellevue-based firm builds software program that helps massive enterprises handle the complicated net of contracts governing their relationships with suppliers, prospects, and companions. Bodas noticed contracts not as static authorized paperwork however as strategic belongings — sources of perception that would assist corporations get monetary savings, transfer quicker, and handle threat.
Icertis turned the primary firm within the contract lifecycle administration class to achieve a $1 billion valuation, in 2019. It was reportedly valued as excessive as $5 billion at one level in 2021. The privately held firm has raised greater than $500 million. Greater than a 3rd of the Fortune 100 are prospects.
Anand Subbaraman, who succeeded Bodas as Icertis CEO final yr, known as him “a pioneer in each sense of the phrase” in the corporate’s announcement of his passing this week.
“His perception in Icertis — its mission, its individuals, and its potential — was unwavering,” Subbaraman mentioned, including that the corporate “will proceed ahead guided by the ideas he instilled.”
Darda, the co-founder and CTO who launched the corporate with Bodas in 2009, mentioned his longtime enterprise accomplice had a uncommon capacity to encourage.
“He challenged all of us to suppose greater, act with integrity, and to create a consequential and enduring firm,” Darda mentioned. “The corporate we’re at this time is a testomony to his imaginative and prescient.”
Laughter as a core worth
Bodas wasn’t all the time a tradition evangelist. He was candid about his evolution.
“Once I got here out of enterprise college, I assumed tradition was all BS,” Bodas mentioned at a TiE Seattle occasion in 2019. “I assumed it was all about earning profits, and so long as you place sufficient cash in individuals’s pockets, they are going to take the ache. That’s completely unsuitable.”
At Icertis, he and Darda developed a framework they known as FORTE — Equity, Openness, Respect, Teamwork, and Execution. The corporate’s inner “Tradition at Icertis” ebook states that the co-founders wished to construct an organization “based mostly on values and one the place they might chuckle greater than anywhere that they had labored earlier than.”
Kellan Carter, who led Ignition Companions’ funding in Icertis in 2016 and is now founding accomplice at Fuse, noticed these values in motion early. He and Ignition co-founder John Connors traveled to India in 2017 for the corporate’s annual city corridor, the place Bodas launched Connors as a brand new board member.
“After introducing John, he requested all the firm — ‘however have you learnt the primary purpose why we selected to work with Ignition and John?’” Carter recalled. “And all the firm shouted ‘FORTE.’”
It was a strong instance of what occurs when an organization is aligned to core ideas.
“Samir led with these values each single day,” Carter mentioned.
Seth Nesbitt, who served as Icertis chief advertising and marketing officer and is now chief income officer at Zuper, mentioned Bodas meant it. “Numerous CEOs deal with excellence and execution — Samir definitely did — however he additionally thought laughter and pleasure at work was important,” Nesbitt mentioned.
When the pandemic hit, they launched the “4 Rings of Accountability” — a prioritization framework that put self-care first, then household, then neighborhood, and eventually enterprise. Bodas in contrast it to the airplane security instruction to place by yourself oxygen masks first.
“When the going obtained powerful — which it all the time does in a startup — Samir would double down on the staff and tradition,” Nesbitt mentioned. “The 4 Rings of Accountability, which got here out of the fog of early COVID, are an awesome instance of that.”
It resonated past Icertis. GeekWire co-founder John Prepare dinner, who hosted a digital panel through the pandemic that includes Bodas alongside enterprise leaders Wealthy Barton and Elena Donio, has incessantly cited the 4 Rings as a philosophy that helped him navigate that interval.
In his e-mail, Nadella mentioned he takes consolation in understanding Bodas’ affect will proceed.
“He had an incredible affect on so many individuals through the years,” the Microsoft CEO wrote, “and whereas we mourn this loss, I’m comforted by how his legacy will dwell on via his household and family members and thru the corporate he inbuilt Icertis.”
