Douglas Levin

Douglas (Doug) Levin is an American businessman, technologist, and serial entrepreneur. He is best known as the sole founder and first CEO of Black Duck Software.

Levin saw early on that developers’ use of open source code in commercial products created code management and license compliance concerns among enterprises. In addition, he was one of the first to recognize the application security risks associated with open source software. He started and built Black Duck to address those issues. Today, the company’s products are the de facto standard for open source software security, software development and management – a mandatory check box for most app dev projects and software solutions. Levin founded or co-founded six other companies, and holds four software patents.

After leaving Black Duck he served as a strategy partner for TechCXO, a management consulting firm specializing in providing C-level expertise to early-stage technology companies on an on-demand basis.

Today Levin serves as an advisor to an array of young companies in the cybersecurity and AI/machine learning segments, including Carbon Relay, Stynt, Tolemi and ZyloTech.He also sits on the Board of Directors of DJ MicroLaminates and Reversing Labs. Levin serves as a mentor in the MIT Venture Mentoring Service and Sandbox Innovation Fund.He also is a frequent guest lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Harvard Business School where he speaks on a range of topics, including finance, technology and markets, and entrepreneurship.

Early Years

Levin began his career as a product evangelist at Microsoft, working on the initial launch and subsequent releases of Microsoft Excel, and other initiatives from 1987 to 1995. He was a key member of the team that created Microsoft’s first volume licensing program, which was eventually extended to all the regions and countries in which the company did business. In his last role for the company, Levin ran Microsoft Germany’s corporate sales and marketing operations. During his three-year tenure in that position, the company achieved exceptionally strong growth in enterprise and value-added channel revenues.

More Start-Ups

He then served as CEO of MessageMachines (acquired by NMS Communications in 2002) and X-Collaboration Software Corporation (acquired by Progress Software in 2000), two VC-backed companies based in Boston. He also helped found and fund Lucid Imagination, which became Lucid Works, and subsequently served on the company’s boards of directors and advisors.

Education and awards

Levin has an advanced degree in International Economics from the Collège d'Europe in Bruges, Belgium and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has also attended Columbia University, New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he took computer science, accounting and finance coursework. In 2007, Levin was awarded CEO of the Year by the Mass Technology Leadership Council. In 2009, he was named a fellow at New England Clean Energy Foundation.

Personal

Levin has two children and lives in Boston with his wife, Susana.

Also see: Doug Levin’s LinkedIn profile.