SDSU Alumna Peggy Johnson Named CEO of Magic Leap

SDSU College of Engineering alumna, Peggy Johnson, BSEE 1985, has been named CEO of Magic Leap. Magic Leap is a spatial computing company building the next computing platform. Magic Leap’s goal is to bring the physical and digital worlds together as one.

Johnson has an impressive career path leading to the CEO role. She most recently served as Executive Vice President of Business Development at Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft, she spent 24 years with Qualcomm, starting in an engineering role where she would often travel with business teams to translate technical engineering details for business projects. At Qualcomm, Johnson rose to the title of President of Global Markets. Johnson brings a proven track record of leading and growing businesses to her role at Magic Leap. At Microsoft she also provided leadership for the company’s corporate venture fund, M12.

Johnson has excelled in the engineering and technology fields on many levels. In 2017, Business Insider recognized her as the “#1 Most Powerful Female Engineer” in the United States. She was also named an SDSU Outstanding Alumna in 2004 and served as the College of Engineering's commencement speaker that year. She serves on the board of directors for BlackRock, Inc. and is an advisor for the San Diego Chapter of the Huntington Disease Society.

According to College of Engineering Dean Eugene Olevsky, the Johnsons have been very generous to the College and University providing a leadership gift to support a Chair in Digital Signal Processing and scholarship support for Electrical and Computer Engineering students. They give in honor of fred harris, emeritus professor in Digital Signal Processing.

Peggy is married to Eric Johnson, MSEE 1986, whom she met at SDSU. They have three grown children.

Congratulations to Peggy and Magic Leap!