Sanjay Mehrotra

Sanjay Mehrotra, President and Chef Executive Officer of SanDisk

Sanjay Mehrotra is co-founder of SanDisk and the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer.^[1] He was appointed to this role in January 2011.

Under Mehrotra's leadership, SanDisk made a strategic transformation from primarily a removable storage and retail-focused company in 2010 to one that today includes a broad product portfolio encompassing flash memory storage products for consumers, embedded storage for OEM customers, and SSDs, software and related services for enterprise and OEM customers.

Two examples illustrate the dramatic change in SanDisk’s revenue sources during Mehrotra’s tenure as CEO:

• SanDisk’s solid state drive business grew from about 3% of the company’s overall revenue in 2011 to about 24% in 2015.
• SanDisk’s removable revenue declined from about 58% of total revenue in 2011 to about 40% in 2015 as the company focused on building the non-removable business.

Overall SanDisk’s revenue grew 31% from $5.05 billion in FY2011 to $6.62 billion in 2014.

In addition to establishing an internal structure to support this fast growing market, SanDisk acquired several enterprise-level systems companies including Pliant Technology,^[2] FlashSoft Corporation,^[3] Schooner Information Technology,^[4] SMART Storage Systems^[5] and Fusion-io^[6] between 2011 and 2014.

Founding

Mehrotra co-founded SanDisk in 1988 and has served as president and chief operating officer since June 2006. He previously served as executive vice president and chief operating officer, senior vice president of engineering, vice president of product development and director of memory design and product engineering.^[7]

He has more than 30 years of experience in the non-volatile semiconductor memory industry, including engineering and management positions at SanDisk, Integrated Device Technology, Inc., SEEQ Technology, Inc., Intel Corporation and Atmel Corporation.

Education

Mehrotra earned his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and computer science in 1978 and his master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science in 1980; both from the University of California, Berkeley.

He is a 2009 graduate of the Stanford University Graduate School of Businesses' Executive Education Program.

Mehrotra holds 71 patents. Among them, US Patent Number 5,172,338 is directed to improvements in the circuits and techniques for read, write, and erase of EEprom memory, enabling non-volatile multi-state memory to operate with enhanced performance over an extended period of time. The technology enhancements associated with this patent were incorporated into certain SanDisk products, allowing the company to significantly improve the overall performance of these flash-based storage products.

He has published articles in the area of non-volatile memory design and flash memory systems.

Awards

Mehrotra has received the following recognition for his leadership and humanitarian contributions:

Leadership

• “Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award” received at the 13th annual Asian American Engineer of the Year Award ceremony March 1, 2014.^[8]
• "Distinguished Alumni Award in Electrical Engineering” from the University of California, Berkeley, 2013.^[9]
• “IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Data Storage Device Technology Award” (with SanDisk co-founders Ei Harari and Jack Yuan) for “leadership in the development and commercialization of Flash electrically erasable programmable read-only memory-based data storage products,” 2006.^[10]

Humanitarian contributions

• American Red Cross "Humanitarian Entrepreneur - Change Maker for the Common Good Award," October, 2015.^[11]

• Mehrotra was honored by the American India Foundation for “personal philanthropic efforts and for leading SanDisk’s programs to advance educational opportunities for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, March 21, 2015.^[12]
• "CEO of the Year” from the Entrepreneur’s Foundation of Silicon Valley in recognition of his leadership in advancing SanDisk’s community service activities, December 10, 2013.^[13]
• Mehrotra received People Acting in Community Together's Corporate Community Leadership award for "civic leadership for the well-being of Silicon Valley," November 13, 2015.^[14]

Board Positions

In addition to SanDisk, Mehrotra serves on the Board of Directors of Cavium, Inc. and the Global Semiconductor Alliance, the Engineering Advisory Board at UC Berkeley, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council.

Activities

Mehrotra delivered a commencement address to graduates of the University of California, Berkeley College of Engineering on May 18, 2014. His speech detailed his own journey and related the lessons he has learned along the way from being an international student to the head of a Fortune 500 company.

In 2013, SanDisk launched Celebration Through Service, a year-long employee volunteerism campaign to recognize the company’s 25th anniversary. Mehrotra set a goal of 100% participation by SanDisk employees globally in a variety of community service activities. The company’s volunteer participation rate grew from 14% to 92% in one year.

To reinforce the company’s community service commitment, in 2014 Mehrotra again set a 100% companywide volunteerism goal. SanDisk employees volunteered over 33,000 hours in 2014, raising more than $3.5 million through the company’s employee cash donation and volunteer matching program.^[15]

Philanthropy

In 2014 a contribution by Sanjay and Sangeeta Mehrotra led to the naming of the "Sanjay and Sangeeta Mehrotra Design Studio" in Jacobs Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, home to the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation.

Since 1994 Mehrotra has made personal contributions to the University of California, Berkeley, in support of the William G. Oldham Fellowship in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, the Berkeley Engineering Fund, and the Cal Fund.

References

1. "SanDisk announces planned retirement of Chairman and CEO Eli Harari". SanDisk. 2010-07-22. Retrieved 2010-07-22.
2. "SanDisk Announces An Agreement To Acquire Pliant Technology" (Press release). 2011-05-16. Retrieved 2012-04-16.
3. "SanDisk Acquires FlashSoft" (Press release). 2012-02-15. Retrieved 2012-04-16.
4. "SanDisk Acquires Enterprise Storage Software Maker Schooner Information Technology" (Press release). 2012-06-26. Retrieved 2012-04-16.
5. "Sandisk Completes Acquisition of SMART Storage Systems" (Press release). 2013-08-22. Retrieved 2013-08-22.
6. "SanDisk Completes Acquisition of Fusion-io". 2014-07-23. Retrieved 2014-07-23.
7. "Q&A: SanDisk CEO Sanjay Mehrotra on flash and its 3-D future". San Jose Mercury News. 2014-08-08. Retrieved 2014-08-08.
8. "Lifetime Achievement Award for SanDisk’s Sanjay Mehrotra". India West. 2014-03-01. Retrieved 2014-03-01.
9. "Berkeley EECS Distinguished Alumni". University of California, Berkeley. 2013-06-01. Retrieved 2013-06-01.
10. "IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Data Storage Device Technology Award". IEEE. 2006-06-01. Retrieved 2006-06-01.
11. "2015 Innovation Celebration". American Red Cross. 2015-10-24. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
12. "Annual Bay Area Gala 2015". American India Foundation. 2015-03-21. Retrieved 2015-03-21.
13. "Silicon Valley Community Foundation recognizes Five Award Winners at Annual Powered by EF reception". Silicon Valley Community Foundation. 2013-12-10. Retrieved 2014-01-07.
14. "Another successful Luncheon on our 30th Anniversary!". People Acting in Community Together'. 2015-11-13. Retrieved 2015-11-13.
15. "Red Cross Names SanDisk’s Sanjay Mehrotra as Philanthropic CEO of the Year". American Red Cross. 2015-09-27. Retrieved 2015-09-27.