Industry Expert Blogs

You may have heard today’s Synopsys announcement that on January 1, 2024, Sassine Ghazi will become Synopsys' next CEO and I will transition to the role of executive chair. Corporate announcements sometimes feel dry and matter of fact, so this is an opportunity for me to share some color and my great enthusiasm for the journey ahead.

To be clear from the start,

I'm just thrilled with Sassine’s promotion to CEO - he has my full support!

I know Sassine really well. He has been at Synopsys for 25 years. He started as an application engineer and then grew into a sales role. Sassine and I first worked closely together 17 years ago, when we established a strategic relationship with a high-impact customer. What struck me immediately was his distinctive positive, can-do attitude and boundless energy.

You see, at that time, Synopsys had not yet begun to challenge ourselves and each other internally with the leadership phrase of, ‘Yes, if…’ This phrase encourages us to intentionally approach situations with a positive mindset, ‘Yes’, we will find a solution. While acknowledging through ‘if’ that the reality, more often than not, is extremely complex. When using ‘Yes, if…’ in a team, the collective effort invariably finds the finish line while also generating confidence and momentum for the team. Introduced in 2019, this mindset shift has had enormous impact on Synopsys, which has been literally visible in our results ever since!

Well, I saw a fantastic ‘Yes, if…’ mindset in Sassine, long before we verbalized it to the company! He never shied away from the many difficult ‘ifs’ to find a path to the promise of ‘Yes,’ be it in very challenging business or technical situations.

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