Profile

CEO and President, Dataupia

By Katie Ford

Name: Foster Hinshaw
Title: CEO and president
Company: Dataupia

Bachelor of science in engineering, Cornell University , 1970
Master of science in engineering, Cornell University , 1971
Master of business administration, Harvard University, 1974

Foster Hinshaw, the founder, CEO, and president of Dataupia, understands the power of information. Through technology, his company helps businesses affordably streamline and quickly access massive amounts of data so they can operate with greater insight and efficiency. It's the perfect challenge for Hinshaw, an enterprising engineer with a head for business.

While some tech industry executives wait until midcareer to earn advanced degrees in business or management, Hinshaw knew as an undergraduate at Cornell University that his schooling should go beyond engineering formulas and equations.

“Apart from engineering, I have always had a strong interest in strategic and nontechnical issues, and I knew I wanted to combine these interests,” he says. “I learned from the experiences of my engineering-school classmates that the path out of engineering and into business without an MBA was difficult. To become successful and hone my business skills, it was clear that I would need to further my education outside of engineering with an MBA.”

Upon finishing his bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering, Hinshaw applied for and was accepted to the MBA program at Harvard University . Almost every summer during his college years, he worked to pay for his degrees. He started out in tech positions, working at Pan Am as a radio technician and at Hewlett-Packard as an engineer. “The inside knowledge I gained from being on the tech side in those early years of my career definitely deepened my understanding of how to make successful and impactful business decisions in tech-based companies later on,” he says.

Armed with an MBA, Hinshaw ventured into the business world in 1974. He has worked almost exclusively with small companies and startups ever since. His first job with a startup was as an engineer for Electric Fuel Propulsion, a manufacturer of full-sized electric cars.

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