Purpose
The purpose of the GSA Global Advisory Group is to assist the GSA executives and the Board of Directors in strategic planning to aid the GSA in achieving its vision to establish an efficient, profitable and sustainable semiconductor and high technology global ecosystem encompassing semiconductors, software, solutions, systems and services.
The GSA is a leading industry organization that provides a unique neutral platform for collaboration, where global executives interface and innovate with peers, partners and customers to accelerate industry growth and maximize return on invested and intellectual capital. Â The GSA has expanded its ecosystem representation by inviting software, services, system and solution companies as well as end market companies to join its existing semiconductor members. The Advisory Group will provide insights and thought leadership and help the organization broaden its benefits to meet the unique needs of these new membership categories.
Karn Budhiraj
Karn Budhiraj
Vice President of Supply Chain
Tesla
Karn is a 10-year veteran of Tesla with broad leadership responsibility over Electronics and Battery Supply Chain, Supplier Manufacturing Engineering, Plant Operations and Distribution. In his previous role as Director of Powertrain, Karn led the Global Supply Management organization for Autopilot, Infotainment, Power Electronics and PCBAs. Prior to Tesla, Karn held procurement roles at Apple and Deloitte. Karn holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a master’s in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Alice Globus
Alice Globus
Chief Financial Officer
Nanotronics
Alice Globus is the Chief Financial Officer of Nanotronics, a global leader in AI-enabled manufacturing process control. Nanotronics is a deep tech company that has developed one of the most sophisticated artificial intelligence platforms, which is revolutionizing manufacturing optimization and security. This platform is achieved through the amalgamation of generative AI, automation, and inspection to assist human ingenuity in real-time process optimization and flaw and anomaly detection within any manufacturing setting.
Nanotronics technology is deployed across over thirty countries and serving hundreds of customers across industries, we work with leading-edge customers—from semiconductor to aerospace—to drive up yields, reduce waste and footprint, lower costs, improve human safety, secure critical infrastructure, and speed up new technology design iterations. As CFO, Alice oversees the financial operations of the company, including accounting, financial planning and analysis, corporate development, and investor relations.
In addition to her financial expertise, Alice is also passionate about the intersection of technology and sustainable manufacturing. She believes that by leveraging advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, companies can improve their operational efficiency, reduce their environmental impact, and drive long-term growth.
Alice brings a unique perspective to her role as CFO at Nanotronics, drawing on her background in astrophysics and her interest in artificial intelligence to inform her strategic financial decision-making.
Prior to joining Nanotronics, Alice was the Chief Financial Officer and Investment Committee Chair at a multi-family office focused on innovative seed-stage to series A companies across a variety of sectors, including healthcare, semiconductor, FinTech, and clean energy. In this position, Alice was responsible for managing the financial operations of the family office and overseeing investments and financial operations within early-stage companies.
Alice received a Bachelor of Arts in Physics from Wells College and PhD studies in theoretical astrophysics at Rochester Institute of Technology. She has conducted astrophysics research at various institutions, including the National Science Foundation at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, the American Museum of Natural History and Princeton University. Alice has also shared her expertise through lectures at Columbia University, New York University, and Wesleyan University, where she has spoken on topics ranging from astrophysics to business strategy.
She is passionate about supporting women in manufacturing, finance and tech and promoting diversity and inclusion within these industries and has previously served as a board member and current member of the Financial Women’s Association and a is member of Women in Manufacturing.
Ajei Gopal
President and CEO
Ansys
Dr. Ajei Gopal has over 30 years of experience in developing business growth strategies, advancing business organically and through strategic acquisitions, improving operational efficiencies and bringing innovative new products to market. Dr. Gopal is president and CEO of S&P 500 company ANSYS, a global leader in engineering simulation. ANSYS helps the world’s most innovative companies engineer radically better products – from microchips to 3D printed hip to rocket ships. During his tenure as ANSYS CEO, Dr. Gopal has helped accelerate the company’s growth, doubling its value and increasing its market capitalization by more than $8 billion. Prior to his current role, Dr. Gopal served as the company’s president and chief operating officer as well as an independent member of the company’s board of directors.
Dr. Gopal previously served as operating partner for Silver Lake Partners, one of the largest technology investors in the world. He worked with several of Silver Lake’s portfolio companies and was seconded as interim president and chief operating officer to Symantec, where we served at CTO earlier in his career. At Symantec, he drove operational improvements, increased its enterprise value and recruited its new CEO. Dr. Gopal also served as senior vice president and general manager of Hewlett Packard Software and executive vice president at CA Technologies, positions where he was responsible for billions of dollars of product portfolios.
An entrepreneur, Dr. Gopal was the founder and CEO of Reefedge Networks, a wireless LAN security company, which was acquired by Symantec. He held several roles at IBM Research and IBM’s Software Group and began his career at Bell Communications Research in 1984.
A renowned technologist, Dr. Gopal holds 23 U.S. patents and has authored numerous papers and technical reports published in distinguished technical conferences and journals. He earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University and a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay in 1982.
Dhiraj Mallick
Dhiraj Mallick
Chief Operating Officer
Cerebras Systems
Dhiraj is Chief Operating Officer of Cerebras Systems. Dhiraj has over 20 years of executive leadership experience directing large, high-performing engineering teams at Intel, AMD and startups like SeaMicro and NexGen. Prior to Cerebras, Dhiraj was CTO and VP Architecture for Intel’s $20B Data Center business. Before Intel, he was an integral part of the executive leadership team as VP Engineering at SeaMicro prior to its acquisition by AMD, after which he continued at AMD as Corporate VP and GM of the Server Solutions division. Dhiraj serves as an advisor to several VC-backed companies and holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Xiaoning Qi
Xiaoning Qi
Vice President
Alibaba Group
Xiaoning Qi is the Vice President of Alibaba Group. Earlier he was CEO of C-Sky Systems which was acquired by Alibaba. Previously, he held senior management and technical positions in companies such as Intel, working on integrated circuit devices, micro-processor design and platform electrical design for semiconductor systems. Additionally, he was Chairman and President of the Chinese American Semiconductor Professional Association, USA. Currently, he is a member of Asia-Pacific Leadership Council, Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), a member of the CEO Council, GSA and a board member of Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC). Xiaoning has published more than fifty technical papers, one book, one book chapter, more than two dozens of invited talks and holds two US patents. He is a reviewer for numerous IEEE Journals and international conferences. Xiaoning Qi received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Mike Thoeny
Mike Thoeny
President, Automotive Business Group
Flex
In his capacity, Mr. Thoeny is responsible for the overall enterprise vision, strategy, business planning, development and execution of the Flex automotive business. Additionally, he is developing programs to expand the global Flex automotive customer base as well as the technology evolution of the company’s automotive portfolio.
Mr. Thoeny has over 30 years of international automotive experience and has held executive leadership positions at Aptiv and Delphi. In his previous roles, he was responsible for P&L and engineering in the areas of Autonomous Driving and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), vehicle electrification, body and chassis electronics, and displays.
Mr. Thoeny holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and an MBA in marketing from Indiana University Kelley School of Business.
Kushagra Vaid
Kushagra Vaid
General Partner
Eclipse Ventures
Kushagra Vaid is the general partner for Eclipse Ventures. He was previously the general manager and distinguished engineer for Hardware Infrastructure in the Microsoft Azure division. He is accountable for the architecture and design of compute and storage platforms, which are the foundation for Microsoft’s global cloud-scale services. He and his team have successfully delivered four generations of hyperscale cloud hardware that have been deployed at massive scale across a global fleet of datacenters hosting a diverse set of workloads such as public cloud (Microsoft Azure), machine learning, internet search (Bing), big data analytics, cloud gaming (Xbox Live) and online productivity (Office 365). These hyperscale system designs have been fully open sourced and contributed to the Open Compute Project (OCP). Vaid is an active participant in OCP and has influenced several aspects of OCP policy and system specifications. He has published several papers for international research conferences and holds over 30 patents in the field of computer architecture and datacenter design.
Before joining Microsoft, he was a principal engineer at Intel, where his responsibilities included driving the technology direction for Intel’s Xeon microprocessors and platforms. He started his career as a CPU design engineer and architected enterprise-class CPUs and platforms for over a decade at Intel.