Tech Entrepreneur Sanjay Shah to Deliver Gruhn Lecture Oct. 18

Founder and CEO of enterprise software company Vistex to talk about balancing the benefits and harm of technology.

Sanjay Shah ’89 MBA, tech entrepreneur, founder and CEO of enterprise software company Vistex will be featured at the 14th lecture in the Donald M. Gruhn '49 Distinguished Finance Speaker Series.

He will discuss founding and growing Vistex without outside funding, along with the push and pull of adopting new technologies; explore whether the good that new technology brings outweighs the potential harm it could cause; and what is an individual's and an institution's responsibility in this process.

Sanjay Shah

Sanjay Shah ’89 MBA

This year’s event is Tuesday, Oct. 18 at 4:15 p.m. in Baker Hall in the Zoellner Arts Center. It’s free and open to the public. Georgette Chapman Phillips, Kevin L. and Lisa A. Clayton Dean of the College of Business, will moderate the discussion. A question and answer session with the audience will follow.

“We are pleased that Sanjay Shah is willing to share his bootstrap story with our students about how he left Mumbai, India to come to Bethlehem, Pa. and earn his MBA at the age of 21,” said Phillips, “and then go on to build an international software giant.”

Shah held positions at PricewaterhouseCoopers and General Motors before moving to Germany to work for software giant SAP. He left SAP to found Vistex in 1999, and for over two decades, the company has achieved unprecedented year-over-year growth, expanding operations globally and broadening its portfolio across 15 industries.

Vistex is an enterprise software company whose clients include Apple, Walmart, 3M, Viacom, Intel, and Bayer. Vistex software provides businesses with a clearer picture of revenue-generating programs that impact financial, marketing and sales functions–and make sure every dollar spent or earned is really driving growth, and not just additional costs.

An impassioned lifelong learner, Shah committed $5 million to Lehigh College of Business in 2017 to establish the Vistex Institute for Executive Learning and Research, which continues to grow.

Donald M. Gruhn '49 Distinguished Finance Speaker Series was started by Judy and Don Gruhn in 2008 with the purpose of bringing industry leaders to campus to share their experiences.

The lecture will be available live on YouTube.

This event qualifies for the Student to Professional co-curriculum and the Creative Curiosity 5x10 Foundation. Students should bring their IDs.

Related Stories

campus beauty

Lehigh Welcomes New Faculty for the 2024-25 Academic Year

Learn about new faculty members on campus this fall.

FinTech students

Lehigh Business Students Invent Innovative AI Tool for Wealth Advisors As Part of FinTech Capstone Project

An AI-assisted note-taking tool created by a team of six Lehigh Business students provides experiential learning opportunity and potential benefits to wealth advisors

COB Dean

Manoj K. Malhotra Installed as Lehigh’s New Dean of the College of Business

Family, friends and colleagues celebrated Malhotra’s installation on Thursday at the Business Innovation Building.