Alnoor Shivji

Alnoor Shivji

Co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Azure Biosystems

Mr. Alnoor Shivji serves as Co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Silicon Valley-based life science research company Azure Biosystems and a General Partner at venture capital firm Global Asset Capital. Mr. Shivji is a co-founder of life science diagnostics and tools company WaferGen Biosystems and served as its Chief Executive Officer and President from April 2003 until October 2011, and as Chairman of the Board from October 2002 until July 2014 (acquired by Takara Biosciences). Between December 2003 and July 2006, he was the Investment Director at VPSA in Paris, France, focusing on telecommunication and networking, semiconductors, and enterprise software at the VC firm.

Prior to that, he co-founded Cyras Systems and served as its President and CEO until it was acquired by CIENA for $1.5 billion in March 2001. He also co-founded Fiberlane Communications, which changed the face of the networking communications industry when it split into Cerent (acquired by Cisco for $6.9 billion) and Siara Systems (acquired by Redback Networks for $4.3 billion). Mr. Shivji also co-founded OSIware, a communications software company that was sold to Infonet, a value-added service provider now part of British Telecom. Mr. Shivji has been in the industry for 30 years and has extensive experience in starting, investing and managing high-tech/biotech companies.

Mr. Shivji currently serves on the board of Azure Biosystems and has served on several boards in the past including WaferGen/Takara, Involver/ Oracle, OneAccess, Silecs, Redwave, Neophotonics (NYSE: NPTN), and Zytera. Mr. Shivji has been a Charter member of several entrepreneurial organizations like TiE, ASVC Wireless, AAMA, SVForum, and OPEN. Mr. Shivji was on the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation USA from 2006 to 2017. He holds a B.S. degree from the University of British Columbia.