Poet Technologies, which has operations at UConn’s flagship campus in Mansfield and in Toronto, said Monday that it has appointed Ajit Manocha as executive vice chairman.
Manocha was most recently CEO of California’s GlobalFoundries, which manufactures circuits in high volumes for Apple, Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom, Samsung and others. He will continue to advise GlobalFoundries.
Poet granted 2 million shares of its stock to Manocha with an exercise price of $1.75 CAD, with 500,000 shares to vest immediately. The company’s stock closed at $1.76 on Thursday. Shares were at $1.78 just after the market opened Monday.
Manocha fills a vacancy left by Mark Benadiba, who served as chairman and vice chairman, and helped shift the company’s direction from photovoltaics to a developer of a semiconductors.
UConn licenses intellectual property to Poet and earlier this year took an equity stake.
Poet also disclosed Monday that President Leon Pierhal will not run for reelection to the board. Poet said it has nominated Sheldon Inwentash to be elected at its Aug. 12 annual meeting. Inwentash is CEO of Pinetree Capital, which is a major Poet shareholder.
