The Software Report is pleased to announce The Top Software CEOs of 2025.
NEW YORK, Jan. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Software Report is pleased to announce The Top Software CEOs of 2025. Over the past decade, software has shifted from an enabling tool to core infrastructure for how modern organizations operate. Enterprise software platforms have expanded in scale, scope, and importance, increasingly determining how data is managed, decisions are made, and work is executed across the economy. That expansion has only accelerated as AI has entered the scene and operational complexity has increased—placing software companies, and the CEOs who lead them, at the center of how institutions function and evolve.
The leaders recognized on this year's list shape how that influence gets applied in practice. Azul Co-Founder and CEO Scott Sellers expanded Azul's enterprise Java stack with the December 2025 acquisition of Payara, adding Jakarta EE capabilities as organizations modernize Java applications across hybrid and cloud-native environments. Actian CEO Marc Potter advanced governed data access for AI with the Actian Data Intelligence Platform and the October 2025 release of its Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, connecting AI assistants to curated enterprise data through a knowledge-graph catalog.
Capital formation has been just as decisive. DDN Co-Founder and CEO Alex Bouzari secured a $300 million strategic investment from Blackstone at a $5 billion valuation, while Clay Co-Founder and CEO Kareem Amin raised a $100 million Series C led by CapitalG at an approximate $3 billion valuation. Starburst Co-Founder and CEO Justin Borgman drove the company's strongest year yet, including its largest multi-year, eight-figure contract with a global financial institution and adoption across 10 of the top 15 global banks.
These headline milestones capture only part of the year. Across this year's awardees, each CEO has delivered concrete progress through product launches, acquisitions, and major financings—scaling platforms that help organizations build, secure, and operate software as AI raises the bar across the industry. Please join us in celebrating The Top Software CEOs of 2025.
This year's awardees include Justin Borgman (Starburst), Mark Moffat (IFS), Alex Bouzari (DDN), Eli Finkelshteyn (Constructor), Kareem Amin (Clay), Chris Walters (Finastra), Marc Potter (Actian), Chaim Indig (Phreesia), Pete Schmied (Appspace), Benjamin Marchal (360Learning), Eric Laughlin (Agiloft), Jabbok Schlacks (EquipmentShare), David Pinn (Brain Corp), Chris Sullens (CentralReach), Scott Sellers (Azul Systems), Rajat Mishra (Prezent), Amjad Masad (Replit), Grant Demaree (Onebrief), Jesse Zhang (Decagon), Ryan Alshak (Laurel), Brian Long (Adaptive Security), John Nay (Norm Ai), Rahul Vohra (Superhuman), Alex Bovee (ConductorOne), Harjot Gill (CodeRabbit), Slavik Markovich (Descope), Will Bryk (Exa), Alex Halliday (AirOps), and Gianni Cuozzo (Exein), among other notable companies. To view the full list, visit https://www.thesoftwarereport.com/.
About The Software Report
The Software Report is a comprehensive source for market research and insights, business news, investment activity, and corporate actions related to the software sector. Based in New York City, the firm is run by a seasoned team of editors, writers, and media professionals highly knowledgeable on software and the various companies, executives, and investors that make up the sector.
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