Mehul Sanghani joins Innovation Campus Advisory Board
Mehul Sanghani, chief executive officer and founder of Octo, has joined the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus Advisory Board. This board, made up of global business and industry leaders, provides strategic direction to Vice President and Executive Director Lance Collins and the Innovation Campus leadership team. The advisory board includes top executives from Boeing, KPMG, and Northrop Grumman along with several tech pioneers and entrepreneurs. Sanju Bansal, founder and CEO of Hutch Analytics, serves as chair.
“We are thrilled to have Mehul – a dedicated Hokie and innovative tech entrepreneur – join our advisory board,” said Collins. “As we continue to make progress toward our 2024 campus opening, his insight and experience will be invaluable. I look forward to continuing to collaborate with him and all our advisory board members.”
Sanghani launched the IT solutions company Octo on age 30, focusing on the foundational belief that advancing customer missions matters most. Leading IT strategy and business transformation initiatives for corporations and federal government agencies, he has guided Octo through tremendous growth while expanding capabilities and solutions that enable customers to solve complex problems and meet critical missions that impact the nation and the world. Under Sanghani’s leadership, Octo has won several awards for innovation and has regularly been named a top workplace.
Sanghani and his wife, Hema ’99, have been longtime supporters of their alma mater. They made an historic $10 million gift to Virginia Tech; $1.5 million of the gift was allocated to establish The Market of Virginia Tech to combat student food insecurity. The Sanghanis’ gift also endowed the groundbreaking Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics at the Innovation Campus in Alexandria. The Sanghani Center, directed by Naren Ramakrishnan, focuses on next-generation research, policy, and technology and has received national recognition, as well as funding, from DARPA and IARPA.
The Sanghanis earned three bachelor’s degrees from Virginia Tech: Mehul in industrial and systems engineering and psychology, and Hema in finance. Mehul was appointed by former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors in 2014 and served on the board until 2022. He also serves on the boards for the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech and the Northern Virginia Technology Council.
