Ajay Kela

Ajay Kela is the President and CEO of the Wadhwani Foundation, a position he has held since October 2010. Under his leadership, the foundation has secured over $100 million in government investments aimed at job creation and has developed replicable job ecosystems across 20 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.12

Education

• B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (1976-1981)
• Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Computational Geometry from the University of Rochester (1981-1986), where he developed a pioneering 3D solid modeling system commercialized by Autodesk.1

Previous Experience

• COO and Managing Director at Symphony Services from September 2003 to March 2010, where he scaled the company to $175 million in revenue before its acquisition by HARMAN International.
• General Manager of the AutoCAD Division at Autodesk Inc. from October 1989 to October 1999, significantly increasing the division's revenue from $170 million to $850 million.12

Contributions

Kela is focused on driving economic development through high-value job creation in emerging economies. His work emphasizes building sustainable job markets that can adapt and thrive globally.3