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

Indian-American Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from India. The terms Asian Indian and East Indian are used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United States, who are also referred to as "Indians" or "Am ...

businessman. He was the first Indian-American founder and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

to take a venture-backed company public on the

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

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 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 198 ...

components, and was named president and CEO in 1985. The company went public on the

in 1987, and merged with

Novell Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as NetWare. Novell technolog ...

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 proprietary software company focused on online ...

) in September 1998. In 1994, Rekhi became a full-time

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible de ...

, 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 An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

to date. Also active in Indian

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...

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 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 ...

(acquired by Hitachi Consulting). In 1995, he co-founded TiE, The Indus Entrepreneurs, 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 The prime minister of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen Union Council of Ministers, Council of Ministers, despite the president of ...

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. It was founded in 1997 by Dr. Parth J. Shah, former Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan. It operates as an independent educational organisation. Acc ...

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, United States. It was founded in 1885 as the Michigan Mining School, the first post-secondary institution in the Uppe ...

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 IIT-B) is a Public university, public research university and Institute of technology, technical institute in Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. IIT Bombay is mainly known for the hig ...

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