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

LUPD's dog Grace

Outside the Box: Lehigh Ventures Lab Helping Ideas Take Flight

Meet the entrepreneurs whose ideas could change the way people date, bank, protect their dogs from ticks, and more.

team meeting

Cultivating a Thriving Environment for Creative Entrepreneurship in the Lehigh Valley

Antigoni Papadimitriou, a teaching assistant professor in the College of Business, and the Lehigh Valley Social Impact Fellowship propel creative entrepreneurship forward.

Laura Smarandescu’s promotional strategy class at Fighter's Heaven

Lehigh Marketing Students to Help Promote Muhammed Ali’s Fighter’s Heaven

Professor Laura Smarandescu’s promotional strategy class is providing ideas to increase attendance to the retreat, as well as website and social media traffic.