Board of Directors
Max Simmons
Chief executive officer (CEO)
Max Simmons is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience in the memory and storage technology sector, having held key leadership positions at Intel and other companies. Throughout his career, Max has spearheaded the adoption of groundbreaking technologies such as QLC NAND, Optane/3D XPoint, and MRAM, successfully driving significant business growth with worldwide customers. During his tenure at Intel, Max led business development efforts that generated over $4 billion in revenue. He is highly skilled in managing large cross-functional teams, including business and technical customer teams, to drive innovative solutions and meet strategic goals. Currently, Max serves as the Chief Commercial Officer at Numem Inc., a leading Memory Subsystem Chip/Chiplet company, where he drives market growth and commercial strategy. Max holds an MBA from UC Davis and a BA in Economics and American Studies from UC Santa Cruz.
Bill Leszinske
Board Member
Bill is a General Partner at Cambium Capital, and a Senior Advisor at Furiosa.AI. He works with founders and their teams to build organizations, roadmaps and to help develop go to market plans. Bill previously spent two years at Cambium portfolio company Groq as VP of Product, Marketing and Software Engineering. Bill also spent ~30 years at Intel where he was a Corporate VP responsible for strategic product planning and business development for the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group and directed Intel’s memory and storage investments. His experience at Intel spanned multiple business units including Sales, Client Chipsets, Digital Home, Set Top Boxes, and Atom System on Chip Development. Finally, Bill spent three years at McKinsey as Senior Advisor, working on strategic semiconductor engagements. He received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University.
Dr. Jack Guedj
Chairman of the Board
Jack was President and CEO of Tensilica since 2008 where, he transformed Tensilica into a rapidly growing company ascending to the #1 position in merchant DSP and ultimately leading to the Cadence acquisition in 2013 where he served as Corporate VP, Tensilica Products.
Prior to Tensilica Jack led the spin-out of Magnum from Cirrus Logic serving as founder, president and CEO. Jack led Magnum’s growth from ground zero to leadership in Multimedia SOCs for the Professional Video Broadcast, Consumer PVR TV/Camcorder/DVD Recorder and Set Top Box markets and the acquisition of the Consumer Products Group of LSI Corporation (C Cube). Prior to Cirrus, Jack was President of Tvia, Inc., leading that company’s successful IPO in August 2000. Jack holds an MBA from the UCLA Graduate School of Management. Jack attained a MSEE from Pierre & Marie Curie Engineering School of Paris, and a doctoral degree from the University of Pierre & Marie Curie.
Nilesh Gharia
Founder/CTO
Nilesh has 20+ years of experience in the semiconductor industry with a diverse background in semiconductor design and product development. Nilesh was part of the startup team at NetLogic Microsystems which went IPO in 2004, and was later acquired by Broadcom in 2012 for $3.7B, which in turn was acquired by Avago in 2016 for $37B. He was also the 1st Engineer at Lanstar Semiconductor, which also went IPO. Nilesh worked in Virtual Silicon Technology, and was responsible for team development and product design. His expertise includes startups, emerging memories, memory compiler development, MRAM technologies, semiconductor IP development, network processors, and team/project management. Nilesh holds a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and has a portfolio of 13 US issued patents.
Rob Crooke
Board of Directors
Rob Crooke is a veteran semiconductor executive best known for his leadership in nonvolatile memory technologies during a pivotal era at Intel and as the founding CEO of Solidigm. At Intel, Crooke served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG), where he was responsible for driving the company’s flash memory strategy and product roadmap. Under his direction, Intel developed and commercialized key innovations in NAND and 3D XPoint (Optane) memory technologies with both aimed at closing the performance gap between storage and DRAM. His leadership was instrumental in positioning Intel as a competitive force in the enterprise SSD market, with offerings across datacenter, client, and embedded applications.In 2021, Crooke oversaw the strategic divestiture of Intel’s NAND SSD business to SK hynix in a $9 billion deal. This transaction led to the formation of Solidigm, a new U.S.-headquartered subsidiary of SK hynix focused on enterprise storage solutions. As Solidigm’s founding CEO, Crooke led the integration of Intel’s NAND assets into the new entity, launching the brand and steering its initial product roadmap and corporate culture. His tenure helped establish Solidigm as a major player in the global SSD market, combining Intel’s technical foundation with SK hynix’s manufacturing scale. Crooke stepped down from the CEO role in late 2022, leaving behind a legacy of innovation and market disruption in the non-volatile memory industry