Rishi Jaitly

Rishi Jaitly is a distinguished entrepreneur, executive, and educator with extensive global experience leading missions that unlock the potential of people, and places.

As Professor of Practice and Distinguished Humanities Fellow at Virginia Tech, Jaitly founded the Institute for Leadership in Technology, which offers the nation’s first Executive Leadership Credential in the Humanities to rising leaders from around the world, and indeed all those who crave “Full Stack Human” skills and sensibilities in this AI-ascendant era. He is also Co-Chair of Virginia Tech’s AI Futures Working Group, charged by President Tim Sands to develop institutional vision and strategy for AI at the university. Until recently, Jaitly served as a Senior Advisor to OpenAI, where he was the first leader devoted exclusively to India and the Global South.

Previously, Jaitly served as Founding CEO of Times Bridge, a leading venture capital firm facilitating international expansion for world-leading companies, including Airbnb, Coursera, and Uber. Before Times Bridge, he was Twitter’s Vice President for Asia Pacific, Middle East, and North Africa, and the company’s first employee in mainland Asia. Prior to that, Jaitly held leadership roles at Google & YouTube in South Asia and in Washington, D.C., and served as a speechwriter for Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Jaitly has also devoted a range of his career to social entrepreneurship, co-founding initiatives such as Michigan Corps, Kiva Detroit and the BMe Community, and having served as a Director at both College Summit and Knight Foundation. He presently serves as Chairman of the National Humanities Center and was a longtime Board Director of Virginia Humanities. Jaitly, who is a former Trustee of Princeton University and Commissioner of Higher Education in New Jersey, was in 2022 recognized as one of Rest of World Magazine’s “Top 100 Global Tech Changemakers.” He is the co-host of the Hidden Wisdom podcast, which features conversations with remarkable leaders and is dedicated to the art and science of seeking and seeing wisdom.

A public speaker who has been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Forbes Magazine, and on CNN, MSNBC and the BBC, Jaitly earned his A.B. in History and Certificate in American Studies from Princeton University.