Zia Chishti

Zia Chishti
Born
Wilson Lear

1971 (age 52–53)
Bar Harbor, Maine, US
Alma materLahore American School
Columbia University
Stanford University
OccupationBusiness executive
Known forOrthoclear, Afiniti
Spouse
Sarah Pobereskin
​
(m. 2020)​
PartnerTatiana Spottiswoode (c. 2017)
AwardsSitara-e-Imtiaz for IT (2018)

Muhammad Ziaullah Khan Chishti (née Wilson Lear; born 1971) is a Pakistani-American investor and business executive. He is the founder of Afiniti, TRG Global, and co-founder of Align Technology.[1][2][3]

After starting his career as a Morgan Stanley investment banker, Chishti invented the medical device Invisalign and co-founded Align Technology to market the product[4] in 1997.[5] He was CEO of Align until 2003, when he founded the investment fund The Resource Group.[6] In 2005 he co-founded both Orthoclear[5] and Afiniti, the latter of which develops artificial intelligence for use in customer call centers.[7] Chishti was a named inventor on around 150 issued patents by 2018,[citation needed] and had co-founded three unicorn startup companies.[8] In 2021, he resigned after accusations of sexual harassment and violence in his career were made public.

  1. ^ Faseeh Mangi (October 2, 2017). "Tycoon Takes Investors Heli Skiing to Show Them Pakistan's Safe". Bloomberg. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  2. ^ "This company founded by a Pakistani is valued at $1.6 billion". The Express Tribune. April 16, 2017. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
  3. ^ "Meet Zia Chishti, the US-born Pakistani who founded two billion-dollar companies". Al Arabiya. December 8, 2017. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference FT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference LF was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference SBL was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "Born in the US, raised in Pakistan: Man who founded two billion-dollar companies | The Express Tribune". The Express Tribune. 2017-12-07. Retrieved 2018-10-11.
  8. ^ Tony Boyd (May 18, 2018). "Afiniti founder Zia Chishti on his third billion-dollar company". Financial Review. Retrieved December 10, 2018.