Management Team

Jitendra Mohan is a co-founder of Astera Labs. He has served as Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the board of directors since November 2017, and served as President from November 2017 to November 2023. Prior to founding Astera Labs, Mr. Mohan served as Product Line (General) Manager at Texas Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq:TXN), a semiconductor company, from March 2012 to October 2017, and at National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:NSM), a semiconductor company, from June 1996 to March 2012 in various technical roles, including most recently as a Design Director. Mr. Mohan holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Sanjay Gajendra is a co-founder of Astera Labs. He has served as Chief Operating Officer and as a member of the board of directors since November 2017, and as President since November 2023. He also served as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer from November 2017 to July 2020. Prior to founding Astera Labs, Mr. Gajendra served as Product Line (General) Manager at Texas Instruments Inc. from July 2014 to October 2017 and a Director of Product Management from January 2012 to June 2014, a Product Manager at National Semiconductor Corporation from June 2006 to December 2011, a Principal Software Engineer from May 2000 to June 2006, and a Senior Software Engineer at Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT), a consulting company, from September 1996 to February 2000. Mr. Gajendra holds a Master of Engineering degree in Engineering Management from University of Colorado Boulder.

Casey leads the product organization for Astera Labs and has the responsibility for defining products and ensuring seamless integration in customer systems. Casey’s career has been centered on helping customers solve complex challenges related to high-bandwidth, low-latency data interconnects. Formerly a head of Systems and Applications Engineering at Texas Instruments, Casey has helped to enable complex system topologies for a variety of applications spanning server, storage, networking, and wireless infrastructure. Casey holds MSEE from the University of Florida, and he actively participates in community volunteering and mentoring programs in San Jose.

Mike is the Chief Financial Officer for Astera Labs. A semiconductor industry veteran, Mike has served as CFO of several companies like Annapurna Labs, Netlogic MicroSystems, Marvell Technology and Galileo Technology and has led numerous mergers, acquisitions, and IPO during his tenure. Most recently, Mike was the CFO at Annapurna Labs, a semiconductor company that had a successful liquidity event in 2015. Prior to that Mike served as the Vice President of Finance and CFO of NetLogic MicroSystems, Inc, a publicly traded semiconductor company, that saw over 400% revenue growth during Mike’s tenure, five successful acquisitions, and the sale of NetLogic to Broadcom Corporation for $3.7 billion. Prior to joining NetLogic, Mike was the Vice President and Interim CFO of Marvell Technology Ltd ,and CFO of Galileo Technology. Mike graduated from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo with honors. He also is a Founder Circle’s member of the Cal Poly Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

Thad is the Chief Business Officer for Astera Labs and is responsible for product strategy and execution, leading marketing, product management and applications engineering functions. He has more than twenty-five years of in-depth experience in marketing, products, and business leadership roles across early-stage startups through large corporations serving data infrastructure customers. Prior to Astera Labs, Thad was VP Marketing of Marvell’s Flash and CXL business. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering / Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley. Outside of work, Thad enjoys outdoor activities including road cycling and skiing.

Kush is the Chief Human Resources Officer for Astera Labs and is responsible for people and culture at the company. Prior to joining Astera Labs, Kush led human resources function for the embedded processing business division of Texas Instruments. During his decade long tenure at Texas Instruments, Kush led HR for various businesses and was also closely involved with integrating National Semiconductor team post its acquisition by TI. Earlier, he worked in HR leadership roles in Alcatel Lucent and Citibank and earned his MBA from XLRI, in Jamshedpur, India. Outside of his work at Astera Labs, Kush is a certified coach and provides leadership coaching to students at University of Texas.

Phil is General Counsel and Secretary for Astera Labs and is responsible for the company’s legal and compliance functions. Prior to joining Astera Labs, he was General Counsel and Secretary at Innovium, Inc., a network switch silicon provider for the data center market. During his tenure at Innovium, Phil oversaw multiple venture financings, negotiated commercial agreements with the company’s most important customers, favorably settled bet-the-company litigation, oversaw creation of a robust IP portfolio, and ultimately led the company through its $1.1B acquisition by Marvell Technology, Inc. Prior to becoming an attorney, Phil spent more than ten years on active duty as a Navy pilot. Outside of work, he is a college admissions representative for the United States Naval Academy and enjoys swimming, biking, and running. Phil earned a JD/MBA from Stanford Law School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.