New York–An Indian-American entrepreneur, who was on the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), has been nominated by President Donald Trump to be a director of the reconstituted US International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC).
The nomination of Deven Parekh to a three-year term was announced by the White House on Thursday.
He is a managing director at the investment company, Insight Partners.
If his nomination is approved by the Senate, he will join Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on the IDFC board.
Parekh was appointed to the OPIC board of directors by former President Barack Obama.
The OPIC was reconstituted by Trump as the IDFC to widen its mission to promote international development through private sector businesses, especially small businesses, in developing nations in order to further US foreign policy objectives while generating returns for the US.
Parekh is a Managing Director at Insight Partners and joined the firm in 2000. He manages investments in application software, data, and consumer internet businesses globally. Notable previous companies in Deven’s portfolio have included Buddy Media (acquired by Salesforce, NASDAQ: CRM), Chegg (IPO), Football Fanatics (acquired by GSI Commerce, later acquired by eBay), Media Mind (IPO and subsequent sale to DG Fast Channel), Procuri (acquired by Ariba, NASDAQ: ARBA), ECI Solution (sold to Carlyle), Russian Trading System (merged with MICEX), Tumblr (acquired by Yahoo!), Hayneedle (sale to Jet.com), Syncsort (sale to Clearlake Capital), Alibaba (IPO), Twitter (IPO), JD.com (IPO), Website Pros (IPO), Yext (IPO), Despagar (IPO), Enverus (sale to Genstar Capital under former name Drilling Info), Turnitin (sale to Advance) and eVestment (sale to NASDAQ). He is a global investor, having actively worked with investments in Europe, Israel, China, India, Latin America, and Russia.
Parekh currently serves as Board Chair for Bullhorn, Appriss, and EveryAction, and he is a member of the Board of Directors for Fanatics, Diligent, 1stdibs, Checkout.com, Episerver, PDI, Community Brands, Vela (formerly SR Labs), Chrono24, Campaign Monitor, Wallapop, FloQast, and Inhabit IQ. He also represents the firm’s interests in Automattic (WordPress), SkyTap, and Zenefits.
He was selected to be on the 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 Forbes Midas list. In 2016, 2018, and 2019 he was selected as a Top 100 Venture Capitalist by CB Insights, and in 2014, was named by AlwaysOn as a Venture Capital 100 winner for his investments in Twitter and Chegg.
Parekh was previously a Principal at Berenson Minella & Company, a New York based merchant banking firm where he served on the firm’s M&A Committee. Prior to Berenson Minella, Deven was with The Blackstone Group, where he was involved in both M&A advisory and principal activities.
He currently serves on the Board of Overseers of NYU Langone and is a Member of the Board of the Tisch New York MS Research Center. He has previously served on the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, and he is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Publicolor, a New York City based non-profit organization that focuses on inner city schools, which he chaired from 2007 – 2012. In 2006, Deven was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, which seeks to develop the next generation of community spirited leaders. Deven is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Economic Club of New York.
He received a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
(Contributed by IANS)
