Naren Gupta, a veteran venture capitalist and a longtime member of the board at Red Hat, is the new chair of the Hatters.

“Red Hat is one of the technology industry’s most respected companies and its culture of open innovation has helped make open source a de facto standard,” Gupta said in a statement.

“I am honored and excited to serve as chairman of its board.”

Raleigh-based Red Hat named Gupta to replace the recently retired Hugh Shelton, a former U.S. Army general who had served as chair since 2010 and helped recruit Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst.

Gupta has served on the Red Hat boar since 2005. He founded VC firm Nexus Venture Partners in 2006 and serves as its managing director.

“Naren is a well-respected leader. Coupled with his global technology industry experience, he is an ideal person for this role,” said Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst.

“Red Hat has already benefited greatly from his broad experience and his contributions as a dedicated member of our board. I look forward to working closely with Naren to continue Red Hat’s role as one of the world’s most innovative companies.”

Raleigh-based Red Hat is the global leader in development of open source Linux software and related services.

Bio: Naren Gupta

Naren co-founded Integrated Systems Inc (ISI), a leading embedded software company, where he served as the President/CEO for fifteen years since founding in 1980. He took ISI public and subsequently merged it with Wind River Systems. Naren continued to serve on the board of Wind River till its acquisition by Intel. He has served on many public boards and is currently on the board of Red Hat and several privately held companies. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the California institute of Technology and the Advisory Board of Asia Society Northern California.

Naren has over 20 years of early and early-growth stage investment experience in US and India.

Naren holds a B.Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi; an MS from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Stanford University all in engineering. He received the Presidents’ Gold Medal for the top performance at IIT Delhi. Naren has received distinguished alumni awards from Caltech and IIT and was elected a Fellow of the IEEE. He is an active advisor to entrepreneurs worldwide.

Source: Nexus Partners