Ajay Shah has served as director and Chairman of the Board of SMART Global Holdings since its inception in 2011 and became Executive Chairman in August 2020. Mr. Shah was previously the Co-CEO starting in March 2018 and then President and Chief Executive Officer of SMART Global Holdings from June 2018 to August 2020.
Mr. Shah joined Silver Lake, a global investment firm, in 2007, and is the co-founder and Managing Partner of the firm’s middle market fund, Silver Lake Sumeru. Since 2014, Mr. Shah has also served as a Senior Operating Partner of Sumeru Equity Partners, a middle-market private equity firm. Previously, he founded Shah Capital Partners, a private equity firm. Mr. Shah co-founded SMART Modular in 1988 and served as Chairman of the board of directors and Chief Executive Officer through SMART Modular’s initial public offering in 1995 and until 1999, when it was acquired by Solectron.
Mr. Shah currently serves on the boards of directors of a number of private technology companies including Alpha Petroleum, Healthgrades and Velocity Technology Solutions, Inc. Mr. Shah previously served on the boards of directors of many public and private technology companies including Magellan Navigation, Inc., AVI-SPL, Inc., CMAC MicroTechnology, Flex, Ingenient Technologies Inc., Power-One, Inc., PulseCore Semiconductor, Spansion Inc. and TES Electronic Solutions.
Mr. Shah also previously served on the board of Northern California Public Broadcasting, is currently a senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum, serves on the boards of National Audubon Society and The Indian School of Business, India and is a Trustee of the American India Foundation. Mr. Shah has a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Baroda, India and an M.S. degree in Engineering Management from Stanford University.