Jay is the Founder and CEO of Tekion, a Silicon Valley unicorn that is disrupting and transforming the automotive retail experience. Under Jay’s leadership, Tekion has experienced hypergrowth rapidly going from a small technology startup to being the chosen partner of some of the most reputed dealers and automotive manufacturers across the country, most recently valued at 3.5B in October of 2021.
Jay brings over two decades of technology leadership experience to the table. Prior to founding Tekion, Jay was the Global Chief Information Officer of Tesla Motors for over 4 years. Jay built and led the transformation of Tesla’s Digital and Information Systems, fueling the company’s hyper-growth from when Tesla had nearly no revenue to achieving over seven billion dollars of revenue in 2016. Prior to Tesla, Jay held senior technology, product, and engineering leadership positions at VMWare, and prior to that at the technology conglomerate Oracle.
Jay is known for building simple, intuitive, and highly scalable technology solutions that transform businesses and power operational efficiency. He is sought after for his experience building and scaling high-growth companies and successfully executing seemingly impossible challenges. He is the inventor of several globally recognized technology patents, advises many technology companies around the globe and has served as a board member for multiple publicly traded companies.
In 2014, Jay received the Tamil American Pioneer – Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Engineering/Science by the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America. In 2021, Jay was honored with the Startup Icon Award by Startup India. In 2022, he was presented with the South Indian Business Achievers (SIBA) Award for his entrepreneurial achievements. Additionally in 2022, Jay was recognized as one of the most exceptional Entrepreneurs of 2022 by Goldman Sachs at its Builders and Innovators Summit. In 2023, Startup India bestowed upon Jay the award of Inspiring Entrepreneur at its annual Business Awards Conclave for scaling and expanding Tekion globally.
