Stephen J. "Steve" Luczo (born February 28, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois) is the Chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Seagate. In January 2009, Luczo, Seagate's chairman, was appointed president and chief executive officer, returning him to the role he held at Seagate from 1998 to 2004. Since Luczo's return in 2009, Seagate’s stock has appreciated by 1600%, placing it among the top 5 performing stocks in the S&P 500.
Luczo is a member of the board of directors of the World Wildlife Fund, a member of the Advisory Board for All-Stars Helping Kids and is active in a variety of charitable and for-profit ventures through a wholly owned entity, Balance Vector, Inc. His charity initiatives are primarily focused on global environmental issues and programs to help at-risk children in the urban centers of the United States and the rural areas of Sicily, and he is a major donor to Stanford University and Hospital, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. In 2015, to recognize his support for education in service to the Italian Republic, Italy's President Sergio Mattarella honored Luczo with the title Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (a knighthood known in English as the "Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity").
He has served on the boards of directors of Microsoft Corporation (including serving on the CEO Search Committee and as Chairman of the Compensation Committee), Veritas Software and VMWare. Luczo also served on the Advisory Boards of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
In 2016 Institutional Investor (magazine) ranked Luczo among the world's top 3 CEOs of IT Hardware & Electronics Manufacturing Services companies, based on the votes of sell-side analysts; in 2015 the magazine ranked him a top 3 CEO in the same category, based on buy-side analysts' votes, and in 2014 he was ranked a top 5 CEO by sell-side analysts in the same category. In 2015, Harvard Business Review ranked Luczo number 6 among "The Best-Performing CEOs in the World." In 2014, CNN Money named Luczo among the 5 top performing CEOs in America,
and Harvard Business Review ranked Luczo number 34 among the top 100 "Best-Performing CEOs in the World." In 2013 Bloomberg ranked Luczo No. 1 among its Top 20 list of technology leaders. In August, 2013, Luczo was awarded the Darjah Setia Pangkuan Negeri (DSPN), the Order of the Defender of State — Knight Commander Mylaysia, which carries the title of Dato, for his contributions to the state of Penang. In 2012, Luczo was ranked 21st on Fortune Magazine's Top 50 Businesspersons of the Year.
Stephen J. "Steve" Luczo (born February 28, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois) is the Chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Seagate. In January 2009, Luczo, Seagate's chairman, was appointed president and chief executive officer, returning him to the role he held at Seagate from 1998 to 2004. Since Luczo's return in 2009, Seagate’s stock has appreciated by 1600%, placing it among the top 5 performing stocks in the S&P 500.
Luczo is a member of the board of directors of the World Wildlife Fund, a member of the Advisory Board for All-Stars Helping Kids and is active in a variety of charitable and for-profit ventures through a wholly owned entity, Balance Vector, Inc. His charity initiatives are primarily focused on global environmental issues and programs to help at-risk children in the urban centers of the United States and the rural areas of Sicily, and he is a major donor to Stanford University and Hospital, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. In 2015, to recognize his support for education in service to the Italian Republic, Italy's President Sergio Mattarella honored Luczo with the title Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (a knighthood known in English as the "Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity").
He has served on the boards of directors of Microsoft Corporation (including serving on the CEO Search Committee and as Chairman of the Compensation Committee), Veritas Software and VMWare. Luczo also served on the Advisory Boards of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
In 2016 Institutional Investor (magazine) ranked Luczo among the world's top 3 CEOs of IT Hardware & Electronics Manufacturing Services companies, based on the votes of sell-side analysts; in 2015 the magazine ranked him a top 3 CEO in the same category, based on buy-side analysts' votes, and in 2014 he was ranked a top 5 CEO by sell-side analysts in the same category. In 2015, Harvard Business Review ranked Luczo number 6 among "The Best-Performing CEOs in the World." In 2014, CNN Money named Luczo among the 5 top performing CEOs in America, and Harvard Business Review ranked Luczo number 34 among the top 100 "Best-Performing CEOs in the World." In 2013 Bloomberg ranked Luczo No. 1 among its Top 20 list of technology leaders. In August, 2013, Luczo was awarded the Darjah Setia Pangkuan Negeri (DSPN), the Order of the Defender of State — Knight Commander Mylaysia, which carries the title of Dato, for his contributions to the state of Penang. In 2012, Luczo was ranked 21st on Fortune Magazine's Top 50 Businesspersons of the Year.
Early career:
After graduating from Stanford in 1979, Steve was hired as a staff accountant in the audit practice of Touche Ross &Co., one of the original "Big Eight" accounting firms. Luczo was the first non- accounting major hired by the firm to work in the audit group. During his first year, he was assigned to assist the City and County of San Francisco in transitioning to a new, then state of the art, mini computing system. During the transition, the City lost control over its cash and payables system, and Luczo was assigned to a 3-member special team appointed by Mayor Dianne Feinstein, to resolve the system issue, which had resulted in a $200 million discrepancy between the cash system and the payable system. The issue was resolved within 5 days and as a result, Luczo was offered the opportunity to lead system deployment at any of 5 major City Departments.
Luczo left Touch Ross in 1980 to pursue the system development and deployment at the Port of San Francisco, which was transitioning from a Sperry Univac 1005 to a Microdata Minicomputer. He was responsible for managing all systems and application architecture and development for the Port, reporting to the chief financial officer. In late 1981 he was promoted to Acting chief financial officer of the Port, and resigned in August 1982 to attend the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
After graduating from the Stanford GSB in 1984, Steve joined Salomon Brothers, Inc. He attended the 1984 Salomon Brothers training program (the year before Michael Lewis did as described in Liar's Poker and was hired into the Municipal Finance Department, and was based in San Francisco. Salomon Brothers was the leading underwriter of Municipal Bonds nationally as was the Firms West Coast office, under the leadership of Terry Atkinson. Luczo financed a wide variety of municipal projects including those for the Irvine Ranch Water District, the LA Department of Water and Power ("LADWOP"), the Metropolitan Water District of LA, the Orange County ("John Wayne") Airport, the University of Arizona, the Central Arizona Water Project, the Sisters of Providence Health Care System, and the Santa Clara Water District. Luczo was involved with over 50 financings, which provided billions of dollars of funding for important infrastructure, educational and health care projects.
Stephen Luczo was the Senior managing director of the Global Technology Group of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., an investment banking firm, from February 1992 to October 1993. Prior to joining Bear, Stearns & Co., he was an investment banker at Salomon Brothers, Inc. from 1984–1992. While at Salomon Brothers, Luczo led the investment banking team for Seagate when it acquired the Imprimis Disk Drive Unit from Control Data in 1989. Subsequent to his advisory work for Seagate, Luczo advised Control Data in the formation of Ceridian and Control Data Systems