In 2021, the independent judges for the GeekWire Awards nominated Samir Bodas as one of the finalists in the category of CEO of the Year. He said no thanks.
The co-founder of Icertis, one of the region’s most valuable startups, asked to withdraw from consideration. “It’s a great honor and we appreciate the support,” his marketing chief explained in an email at the time, “but we would like to stick to our policy of team vs individual awards.”
His friends and colleagues will recognize the moment as vintage Samir — building and leading a multibillion-dollar company while insisting the spotlight belonged elsewhere.
That’s one of the memories resurfacing this week after the company announced that Bodas passed away following a battle with cancer. He was 61, and had stepped down as Icertis CEO last August, saying at the time that he planned to focus on his health.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in an email to GeekWire, described a friendship with Bodas that began more than 30 years ago when they were both starting out at Microsoft. They lived in the same apartment building near the company’s Redmond campus.
“As a leader, he was level-headed, took risks, and had an entrepreneurial spirit that we all admired,” Nadella said. “And as a friend, he was joyous, welcoming, and had a zest for life that radiated to those around him. I genuinely loved every moment I spent with him.”
The two joined Microsoft the same year, 1992. Bodas spent seven years there in sales and marketing roles. Nadella, of course, never left, rising to become CEO in 2014. But they stayed close, eventually becoming co-owners of the Seattle Orcas, the Major League Cricket franchise.
S. “Soma” Somasegar, the Madrona Venture Group managing director who was also part of that Microsoft cohort and an Orcas co-owner, was an angel investor in Icertis.
“I had a front row seat to Samir and how he built and scaled Icertis to what it is today,” Somasegar said. “Throughout the years, he would always say, ‘This is the thing that matters the most in my professional life and I want to be doing this forever.’ Till the end, he lived that.”
When the group had a chance to bring Major League Cricket to Seattle, Somasegar said, Bodas jumped in with enthusiasm. “He was very vocal about this being one of the ways he wanted to give back to the Pacific Northwest community.”
His path to Seattle
Bodas was born in Pune, India, and came to the United States in 1982 to attend the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a degree in computer science. His first job was as a programmer at National Instruments in Austin, where he was employee No. 42.
“The startup bug bit me then, and incubated for 16 years,” Bodas told GeekWire in 2021, saying the experience gave him a “deep appreciation of why grit, hard work, smarts, timing, and finally serendipity are essential ingredients for startup success.”
After earning an MBA from Wharton in 1992, he joined Microsoft and later ran two IT services companies — Disha Technology and Aztecsoft — through rapid growth and successful exits.
In 2009, he met Monish Darda, a former BladeLogic executive, and the two founded Icertis at the dawn of cloud computing.
The Bellevue-based company builds software that helps large enterprises manage the complex web of contracts governing their relationships with suppliers, customers, and partners. Bodas saw contracts not as static legal documents but as strategic assets — sources of insight that could help companies save money, move faster, and manage risk.
Icertis became the first company in the contract lifecycle management category to reach a $1 billion valuation, in 2019. It was reportedly valued as high as $5 billion at one point in 2021. The privately held company has raised more than $500 million. More than a third of the Fortune 100 are customers.
Anand Subbaraman, who succeeded Bodas as Icertis CEO last year, called him “a pioneer in every sense of the word” in the company’s announcement of his passing this week.
“His belief in Icertis — its mission, its people, and its potential — was unwavering,” Subbaraman said, adding that the company “will continue forward guided by the principles he instilled.”
Darda, the co-founder and CTO who launched the company with Bodas in 2009, said his longtime business partner had a rare ability to inspire.
“He challenged all of us to think bigger, act with integrity, and to create a consequential and enduring company,” Darda said. “The company we are today is a testament to his vision.”
Laughter as a core value
Bodas wasn’t always a culture evangelist. He was candid about his evolution.
“When I came out of business school, I thought culture was all BS,” Bodas said at a TiE Seattle event in 2019. “I thought it was all about making money, and as long as you put enough money in people’s pockets, they will take the pain. That’s absolutely wrong.”
At Icertis, he and Darda developed a framework they called FORTE — Fairness, Openness, Respect, Teamwork, and Execution. The company’s internal “Culture at Icertis” book states that the co-founders wanted to build a company “based on values and one where they could laugh more than any place they had worked before.”
Kellan Carter, who led Ignition Partners’ investment in Icertis in 2016 and is now founding partner at Fuse, saw those values in action early. He and Ignition co-founder John Connors traveled to India in 2017 for the company’s annual town hall, where Bodas introduced Connors as a new board member.
“After introducing John, he asked the entire company — ‘but do you know the number one reason why we chose to work with Ignition and John?’” Carter recalled. “And the entire company shouted ‘FORTE.’”
It was a powerful example of what happens when a company is aligned to core principles.
“Samir led with these values every single day,” Carter said.
Seth Nesbitt, who served as Icertis chief marketing officer and is now chief revenue officer at Zuper, said Bodas meant it. “Lots of CEOs focus on excellence and execution — Samir certainly did — but he also thought laughter and joy at work was essential,” Nesbitt said.
When the pandemic hit, they introduced the “Four Rings of Responsibility” — a prioritization framework that put self-care first, then family, then community, and finally business. Bodas compared it to the airplane safety instruction to put on your own oxygen mask first.
“When the going got tough — which it always does in a startup — Samir would double down on the team and culture,” Nesbitt said. “The Four Rings of Responsibility, which came out of the fog of early COVID, are a great example of that.”
It resonated beyond Icertis. GeekWire co-founder John Cook, who hosted a virtual panel during the pandemic featuring Bodas alongside business leaders Rich Barton and Elena Donio, has frequently cited the Four Rings as a philosophy that helped him navigate that period.
In his email, Nadella said he takes comfort in knowing Bodas’ impact will continue.
“He had a tremendous impact on so many people over the years,” the Microsoft CEO wrote, “and while we mourn this loss, I am comforted by how his legacy will live on through his family and loved ones and through the company he built in Icertis.”
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