Solar industry veteran PM Pai has joined global venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) as a venture partner. Pai, who has more than 30 years of manufacturing and mass production expertise spanning several industries, will work with NEA’s energy technology team. He is already on the boards of two of the VC’s portfolio companies, silicon solar-cell manufacturer Suniva and Deeya Energy, an advanced energy storage developer.
Pai was COO of SunPower from April 2005 to July 2008, where he was responsible for strategic planning, production expansion, and supply chain development on a worldwide basis. Prior to his stint at SunPower, he served for four years as president of Moser Baer India, the world’s second-largest manufacturer of optical storage media.
He graduated from Mysore University, India, with a degree in mechanical engineering. His graduate work also includes an M.Tech in industrial engineering, with distinction, from IIT Chennai and the Advanced Management Program (ISMP) at Harvard Business School.
