Dr. Ajei Gopal is the President and CEO of ANSYS Inc., Pennsylvania, US. He obtained his B.Tech. degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1982, his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Cornell University.
Dr. Gopal began his career initially as a researcher with Bell Communications Research and later joined IBM Research, where he conducted and managed projects in distributed and clustered systems. He became a Founding Member and Chief Technology Officer of IBM’s Pervasive Computing Division.
In 2000, he co-founded and served as CEO of ReefEdge Networks, a provider of managed and secure wireless LAN systems, which was sold to Symantec Corporation, the leader in cyber security software and services in 2004. He served as Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President at Symantec before moving to CA Technologies, where he was Executive Vice President and General Manager of products, and later to HP, where he was Senior Vice President and General Manager at HP Software.
Prior to taking his current role as President and CEO of ANSYS Inc., Dr. Gopal served as an Operating Partner at Sliver Lake Partners, the global leader in technology investing. He has been an Independent Director of Citrix Systems, Inc. since September 2017 and a Director of ANSYS since February 2011.
During Dr. Gopal’s first 18 months as CEO of engineering simulation leader ANSYS, the value of the company doubled, increasing its market capitalization by more than $8 billion. ANSYS has revolutionized the way that products – from microchips to the rocket ships – are developed and brought to market. Dr. Gopal extended the ANSYS vision to “Pervasive Simulation,” a bold idea in which engineering simulation is used throughout the product lifecycle. Pervasive Simulation has captured the imagination of the industry and helped to propel ANSYS to even greater success.
Dr. Gopal has consistently demonstrated his business and technological acumen throughout his career – from large public to small private companies. He has consistently demonstrated his ability to lead businesses by driving growth both organically and through M&A – all while improving operating efficiency. And he is known as a technologist, with numerous patents and publications.
Dr. Gopal has 23 granted US patents to his credit. He was elected to the IBM Academy of Technology in 1998, the same year he received the prestigious IBM Outstanding Technical Accomplishment Award.