Kanwal Singh Rekhi (born August 29, 1945) ( Punjabi : ਕੰਵਲ ਰੇਖੀ) is an

Indian-American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

businessperson. He was the first Indian-American founder and CEO to take a venture-backed company public on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Career

Rekhi had worked as an engineer, systems analyst, and manager before venturing into entrepreneurship. At the age of 36, he moved to San Jose, California and co-founded

Excelan Excelan was a computer networking company founded in 1982 by Kanwal Rekhi, Inder Singh and Navindra Jain. Excelan was a manufacturer of smart Ethernet cards, until the company merged with, and was acquired by Novell in 1989. The company offere ...

in 1982, a manufacturer of smart

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...

components, and was named president and CEO in 1985. The company went public on the Nasdaq in 1987, and merged with Novell in 1989. He remained at Novell as an executive vice-president and the - chief technology officer of the company, later joining the board of directors. Rekhi retired from Novell in 1995. After leaving Novell, he was the CEO at CyberMedia from January 1998 until its merger with Network Associates (now

McAfee McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American global computer security software company head ...

) in September 1998. In 1994, Rekhi became a full-time angel investor, investing in more than 50 startups, of which he led the initial financing and was a member of the board of directors for 23 companies. His venture financings have resulted in 21 exits including six IPOs to date. Also active in Indian

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...

related to venture, Rekhi advised India government policy makers in reforming venture regulations. This encouraged fund formation in India, and Rekhi was the founding limited partner behind Infinity Capital-India a successful early-stage India venture fund. In 2007, Rekhi co-founded Inventus Capital Partners, and currently serves as managing director. During his time at Inventus, he has invested in companies including GENWI, Salorix, Poshmark, and Sierra Atlantic (acquired by

Hitachi Consulting Hitachi Consulting Corporation was an American international management and technology consulting firm with headquarters in Dallas, Texas. It was founded in November 2000 as a subsidiary of the Japanese corporation Hitachi, and employed approxima ...

). In 1995, he co-founded TiE,

The Indus Entrepreneurs Tie has two principal meanings: * Tie (draw), a finish to a competition with identical results, particularly sports * Necktie, a long piece of cloth worn around the neck or shoulders Tie or TIE may also refer to: Engineering and technology * Ti ...

, a nonprofit support network to provide advice, contacts, and funding to Indian Americans hoping to start businesses. He also acted as an expert in advising the Prime Minister of India and his government for laying the foundation for the country's Information technology expansion. Rekhi has served as a trustee on the global board of TiE. He is also a former chairman of the

Centre for Civil Society Centre for Civil Society (CCS) is a non-profit think tank based in New Delhi. The Centre was founded in 1997 by Dr Parth J Shah, former Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan. It operates as an independent educational organisatio ...

Philanthropy

Rekhi contributed $5 million to

Michigan Tech Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech, MTU, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Houghton, Michigan, founded in 1885 as the Michigan Mining School, the first post-secondary institution in the Upper Peninsula of Michiga ...

in 2000. To help set up a new school of Information Technology, he donated $3 million to

IIT Bombay The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay or IITB) is a public research university and technical institute in Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is considered as one of the best engineering universities in India and is top rank ...

which named one of its schools after him as the "Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology (KReSIT)"(which was merged in 2006 with the department of computer science and engineering).

Awards and recognition

In 2003 Rekhi was awarded the Bina Chaudhuri Award for Distinguished Service from the California Institute of Integral Studies. He was also awarded "Entrepreneur of the Year" in 1987 by Arthur Young and ''Venture'' magazine.

References

External links

Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology, IIT-B
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rekhi, Kanwal Indian emigrants to the United States American telecommunications industry businesspeople American people of Indian descent Living people American people of Punjabi descent 1945 births Indian venture capitalists Novell people Ahluwalia