Murat Kutsi Sönmez

Murat Sönmez is an innovative, inspirational and purpose driven global business leader with deep technology experience in Silicon Valley complemented with more than six years as a member of the Managing Board of the World Economic Forum. 

Murat is the co-founder and CEO of pulsESG™.  Founded in March 2021, pulsESG™ is a public benefit corporation dedicated to empowering purpose-driven enterprises to manage and improve their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) footprint with an integrated and comprehensive technology platform built for compliance tracking and insight.  The company came out of stealth mode in November 2011 with seed funding of $9.5 million from world class investors.

Murat began his career in Silicon Valley as a software engineer in 1989 automating the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturing facilities.  He later joined Teknekron Software Systems in 1994 to expand the company’s footprint from digital trading floors to other industries.  Murat was a co-founder of TIBCO Software in 1997, a leading provider of real-time data distribution and analytics software based in Palo Alto, California.  His main responsibility was the customer facing side of the company’s operations.   TIBCO went public in 1999 and crossed $1 billion revenue mark in 2013 with 38 offices in 18 countries, and over 4,000 customers.  In 2014 Murat was invited to join the Managing Board of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and moved to Geneva, Switzerland.  His initial focus was to look after WEF’s global business community.  Murat became the founding head of the WEF’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) global network in 2017.  C4IR is a public private partnership initiative aimed at creating forward looking and inclusive governance protocols for 4IR technologies such as artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, and digital currency.  He pioneered the concept of data economy as articulated in a recent IMF paper.  Murat left his position at the WEF in March 2021 to focus on impact driven technology startups in Silicon Valley. 

Murat graduated from TED Ankara College in 1981, holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Bosphorus University (Istanbul Turkey), and a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Virginia Tech.