Altair (Nasdaq: ALTR) announced that Shekar Ayyar has joined Altair’s board of directors.

“Shekar brings a wealth of consulting, strategy, and technical expertise in electronics, telecommunications, and software markets to our board of directors,” said James R. Scapa, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer, Altair. “He has an outstanding track record of efficiently scaling technology businesses including both organic and inorganic growth.”

With more than 25 years of industry experience, Ayyar was most recently an executive vice president and general manager for VMware’s telco and edge cloud business unit and previously held other leadership positions at VMWare including as the company’s executive vice president of strategy and corporate development. He is currently the chief executive officer of AdMY Technologies Inc. and a venture partner with NTTVC. 

Prior to joining VMware, Shekar held executive positions at BindView and Instantis, and advised executive management through roles at Lucent Technologies and McKinsey & Company. He also was an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Lafayette College and conducted research at Bell Laboratories.

“I look forward to joining Altair’s board of directors. Altair is poised for exceptional growth propelled by its best-in-class, robust, scalable, and technically differentiated platform that brings together the power of simulation, HPC, and AI,” said Ayyar. “Its ability to leverage software and cloud technology combined with its entrepreneurial culture is a great asset.”

Ayyar earned a master of business administration degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; a PhD and master of science degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University; and a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. 

Altair also announced that Richard Hart has resigned from Altair’s board and that Ayyar will fill the vacancy resulting from that resignation. 

“We want to express our sincere gratitude to Richard for his outstanding advice throughout his tenure on the board. His insights were extremely valuable and his service greatly appreciated,” said Scapa. “He will be missed.”

About Altair (Nasdaq: ALTR)

Altair is a global technology company that provides software and cloud solutions in the areas of simulation, high-performance computing (HPC), and artificial intelligence (AI). Altair enables organizations across broad industry segments to compete more effectively in a connected world while creating a more sustainable future. To learn more, please visit www.altair.com.