Donna Auguste

Donna Auguste is a pioneering technology executive and entrepreneur whose work helped shape Silicon Valley’s early internet economy. After earning degrees from UC Berkeley and Stanford, she joined Apple, contributing to the development of the Newton PDA, an early handheld computing device that anticipated today’s mobile technology. She later held leadership roles at Sun Microsystems, helping scale enterprise internet infrastructure during a period of rapid global expansion. In 1996, she co-founded Freshwater Software, a company focused on internet service management, and led it to a successful $147 million acquisition by Mercury Interactive. Beyond her business success, Auguste founded the Leave a Little Room Foundation, supporting global education and leadership development initiatives.

Quick Facts

• Born: 1958 — Texas
• Degrees from UC Berkeley & Stanford University
• Early engineer on Apple Newton PDA
• Former executive at Sun Microsystems
• Co-founder & CEO, Freshwater Software (company sold for $147M)
• Founder, Leave a Little Room Foundation
• Advocate for global education and tech leadership