Dr. Babak Taheri
Chief Executive Officer and Director
Babak A. Taheri, Ph.D. has served as Chief Executive Officer and a board member of Silvaco since August 2019, with a brief pause between September and November 2021. Prior to becoming CEO, he served as Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Products from October 2018 to August 2019.
Before joining Silvaco, Dr. Taheri was the CEO and President of Integrated Biosensing Technologies (IBT), an advisory and consulting firm, from May 2015 to October 2018. Dr. Taheri serves on the board of directors of Sunright Limited (Singapore: SGX), a provider of advanced semiconductor test and burn-in services. He has also served on advisory boards, including MEMS World Summit, Novasentis, AGCM, ALEA Labs, Silverlake Sumeru, Lion Point Capital, and was a member of the governing council of ESDA Alliance (2019-2021). He currently chairs the advisory board for the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of California, Davis.
Dr. Taheri has held leadership roles at several companies, including VP & GM at Freescale Semiconductor (now NXP), where he received the “Diamond Chip Award” (2013, 2014) and was named MEMS & Sensors Executive of the Year (2014). He has also served as VP/GM at Cypress Semiconductors, earning “The Perfect Project Award” in 2003, and was instrumental in acquiring Ramtron for the business he was managing. His experience includes roles at Invensense (now TDK), SRI International, and Apple.
Dr. Taheri holds a B.S. in Engineering from San Francisco State University, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from San Jose State University, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering (with concentrations in Electrical Engineering and Neuroscience) from the University of California, Davis. In 2015, he received the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal (DEAM) from UC Davis. His most recent book, “Artificial Sensors Shape the Six Pillars of Our Lives,” was published in 2021.
Dr. Walden “Wally” C. Rhines
Director
Walden C. Rhines, Ph.D., has served as a member of our board of directors and as a member of our audit committee since September 2022. Since March 2020, Dr. Rhines has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Cornami, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company. Since 2015, Dr. Rhines has also served as a member of the board of directors and as chair of the compensation committee of Qorvo, Inc. (Nasdaq: QRVO), a semiconductor company, since January 2015 and its chairman since November 2023. He served as a member of the board of directors of PTK Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: PTK), a special purpose acquisition company from July 2020 until September 2021 and served on its audit, nominating and compensation committees. From October 1993 to March 2017, Dr. Rhines served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Mentor Graphics Corporation, an EDA company, and chairman of its board of directors from 2000 until its acquisition by Siemens in March 2017, pursuant to which the company was renamed Mentor Graphics, a Siemens Business. Following the acquisition, Dr. Rhines served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens EDA (formerly Mentor Graphics, a Siemens Business), from March 2017 to October 2018, after which he served as its Chief Executive Officer Emeritus until September 2020. Dr. Rhines received a B.S.E. in metallurgical engineering from the University of Michigan, an M.S. and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Stanford University, and a M.B.A. from the Southern Methodist University, Cox School of Business.
Hau L. Lee, PhD
Lead Independent Director
Hau L. Lee, Ph.D., has served as a member of our board of directors, as our lead independent director and as a member of our compensation committee since September 2022. From September 2002 to May 2023, Dr. Lee served as an Operations, Information and Technology Professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he had been a professor since 1983. Since February 2012, Dr. Lee has also served on the board of directors of TD SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX), a distributor and solutions aggregator for the IT ecosystem. Since April 2013, Dr. Lee has served as a member of the board of directors and on the audit and compensation committees of Lion Rock Group Limited (HKG: 1127) and its chairman since June 2023. In addition, from March 2014 to July 2020, Dr. Lee served as a member of the board of directors and on the compensation committee of Frontier Services Group (HKG: 0500), a Chinese Africa-focused security, aviation, and logistics company. From June 2014 to September 2020, he served as a member of the board directors and on the compensation committee of Global Brands Group (SEHK: 787), a brand management company, and from February 2019 to September 2022, Dr. Lee served as a member of the board of directors and on the compensation committee of LF Logistics, a logistics solution company. In November 1999, Dr. Lee co-founded DemandTec, Inc., a retail pricing technology company. Dr. Lee received a B.Soc.Sc. degree in Economics and Statistics from the University of Hong Kong, an M.Sc. degree in operational research from the London School of Economics and an M.S. and Ph.D in operations research from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Jodi Shelton
Director
Jodi L. Shelton has served as a member of our board of directors and as a member of our nominating and corporate governance committee since September 2022 and our compensation committee since April 2024. Ms. Shelton cofounded Global Semiconductor Alliance, a leading semiconductor industry organization, in June 1994 and has served as its Chief Executive Officer since June 1994. Ms. Shelton also co-founded Shelton Group, a strategic investor relations firm in February 1994 and has served as its chair since February 1994. Since March 2021, Ms. Shelton has also served on the board of directors and as a member of the audit and compensation committees of LF Capital Acquisition Corp (Nasdaq: LFAC), a special purpose acquisition company. Ms. Shelton received a B.S. in political science from San Diego State University and an M.S. in political science from University of Houston.
William Molloie
Director
William H. Molloie, Jr. has served as a member of our board of directors and as chair of our audit committee since May 2022. Since March 2021, Mr. Molloie has been a lecturer at the University of California, San Diego Rady School of Management. In July 1986, Mr. Molloie joined PricewaterhouseCoopers, a public accounting firm, and served as an assurance partner from October 1997 to June 2020. Since June 2021, Mr. Molloie has served on the board of directors of WinSanTor Inc., a private clinical-stage biotechnology company, and has served as a member of its compensation committee since April 2022. Mr. Molloie received a B.A. in accounting and finance from Temple University.
Anthony Ngai
Director
Anthony K. K. Ngai has served as a member of our board of directors since October 2018 and as a member of our nominating and corporate governance, compensation and audit committees since May 2021. Mr. Ngai has also served as chair of our nominating and corporate governance committee since September 2022 and as chair of our audit committee from November 2021 to April 2022. Since June 2022, Mr. Ngai has served as the Chief Financial Officer of Unience.io, a technology company based in Hong Kong that develops blockchain and Web3 applications and community. From September 2020 to June 2022, Mr. Ngai served as a Partner of Gravity Capital Partners Co. and the Responsible Officer of Avanta Investment Management, an asset management company. Prior to that, Mr. Ngai served as the Head of Credit Trading at J.P. Morgan Asia Pacific, a global financial services firm, from June 2004 to September 2018. In November 2018, Mr. Ngai co-founded JUST FEEL, a nonprofit charity focused on mental health in education. Since July 2020, Mr. Ngai served on the Board of Trustees of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Chung Chi College. Mr. Ngai received a B.S. in quantitative finance from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and is a graduate of the Program for Management Development from Harvard Business School.
Kathy Pesic
Chair of the Board and Director
Katherine S. Ngai-Pesic co-founded Silvaco in 1984 and is our controlling stockholder. Ms. Ngai-Pesic has served as a member of our board of directors since November 2012 and as chair of our board of directors since December 2021. Ms. Ngai-Pesic has also served as a member of our compensation committee since May 2021 and as chair of our compensation committee from December 2021 to September 2022, as chair of our nominating and corporate governance committee from May 2021 to December 2021 and as a member of our nominating and corporate governance committee since December 2021 and as a member of our audit committee from May 2021 to September 2022. In addition, Ms. Ngai-Pesic founded Kipee in March 2001 and has served as its President since inception and founded the Lee Ho Yee Foundation in April 2021 and has served as chair of its board of directors since inception. Mrs. Ngai-Pesic has served as president of the Marriott Business Center HOA Association since October 2012. Ms. Ngai-Pesic also has an endowed associate professorship at Purdue University’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. Ms. Ngai-Pesic received a B.S. in chemistry and an M.S. in electrical engineering from Santa Clara University.
Anita Ganti
Director
Anita Ganti has served as a member of our board of directors since March 2024 and as the chair of our compensation committee since April 2024. From 2015 to October 2019, Ms. Ganti served as senior vice president of the product engineering services organization of Wipro Limited, a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company. From 2013 to 2015, she was vice president of global technology at Flex Ltd. (formerly Flextronics), a global electronics manufacturing services company. Since 2020, Ms. Ganti has served as member of the board of director and the audit committee of Power Integrations Inc. (Nasdaq: POWI), which is a fabless semiconductor company. In addition, between June 2023 and April 2024, she served as a director and the chairperson of the compensation committee and member of the audit committee of Exro Technologies (TSX: EXRO), a power-control electronics company. Ms. Ganti has a B.S. in electrical engineering from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute in India, an M.S.E.E. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.