GSA & WLI: Accelerating Action Towards Equality: Renesas and Wolfspeed

Chandana Pairla

VP of the Connectivity Division

Renesas

Chandana Pairla is the Corporate Vice President of the Connectivity Division at Renesas, overseeing a comprehensive portfolio that includes LPC, WiFi, NFC, UWB, Radar, and SubGHz product lines addressing a variety of market segments including Consumer, Smart home, IOT, Industrial and Automotive. With over two decades of experience in engineering, product management, and strategy within the semiconductor industry, Chandana is responsible for driving Renesas towards excellence in connectivity solutions and shaping the future of the semiconductor industry.

Before joining Renesas, Chandana served as the VP of Product Management at Charter Communications, where she played a pivotal role in shaping WiFi and IoT product roadmaps, delivering enhanced services to a vast customer base of over 20 million subscribers.

Prior to her tenure at Charter, Chandana held key leadership positions, including leading Corporate Strategy at Intel, where she spearheaded initiatives aimed at enhancing execution excellence and ensuring a consistent flow of innovative products across the company’s Consumer and IoT segments.

Chandana’s career journey also includes significant contributions at Qualcomm and Flarion Technologies, where she held influential roles in product and engineering leadership. Notably, at Qualcomm, Chandana led the Product Management organization for WiFi infrastructure, orchestrating strategies such as WiFi Mesh that revolutionized the router market and propelled Qualcomm to
significant market share gains.

Chandana is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, holding a Master of Science degree in Computer Science. She also earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Osmania University.

Elif Balkas

Chief Technology Officer

Wolfspeed

Elif Balkas serves as the Chief Technology Officer at Wolfspeed, responsible for building on the company’s strong technology foundation in wide bandgap materials, driving technological improvements to yield products with high quality and reliability as Wolfspeed continues to grow as the only pure play, vertically integrated silicon carbide company. During her 19+ tenure with the company, Elif served in a variety of leadership positions in R&D and operations, dedicating most of her time and focus on developing technologies that are scalable for manufacturing purposes and to enable more efficient and powerful electronic systems.

Elif cofounded the Women’s Initiative at Wolfspeed, to encourage, develop and support women who will lead the way in innovation and execution in every aspect of the business and community, and served as the leader of the Professional Development Focus to create an environment where everyone’s perspectives, ideas and contributions matter. She continues to serve on Women’s Initiative’s Steering Committee to foster diversity at all levels to create better results for the Company and our community.

Prior to Wolfspeed, Elif served as a scientist at Intrinsic Semiconductor where she was responsible for GaN and SiC epitaxy product development with a focus on high quality and efficient processes. Elif holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science with a minor in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University, specialized in GaN crystal growth via physical vapor transport. Elif is also graduate of the Chief Technology Officer Program at Wharton School.