Jay Vijayan

Jay (Jayaprakash) Vijayan is a US-based entrepreneur, engineer, inventor, and investor. He is the founder and CEO of Tekion Corp, a SaaS company based in the United States of America. Prior to founding Tekion, he served as chief information officer (CIO) at Tesla Motors. He also worked for VMware and Oracle.

Early life and education
Vijayan was born in Chennai, into a Tamil family, to K. Vijayan and V. Umadevi. His father operated a computer science training and coaching institute in the city. Vijayan completed his education at AVM Matriculation and Avichi Higher Secondary Schools. Subsequently, He subsequently pursued his higher studies at the University of Madras in Chennai, where he earned both a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science degree.

Career
Vijayan started his career at Bahwan CyberTek before moving to Singapore and finally to the United States. After a brief stint at Bahwan CyberTek, he joined City Developments Limited, a private company headquartered in Singapore, and also completed Oracle database certification programs. He worked at Oracle in the US from 1999 to 2007 as a programmer, and later a senior manager.

In 2007, Vijayan left Oracle for VMware, a California-based cloud computing and virtualization technology company, where he served as senior director from 2007 to 2012. He led the application development of all business applications for VMware. In 2012, VMware reported a revenue of US$3.77 billion.

From 2012 to 2016, Vijayan served as the CIO at Tesla Motors. In this role, he reported directly to CEO Elon Musk. Vijayan and his team were responsible for managing Tesla's digital and information systems. He is credited with building Warp, Tesla's home-grown ERP system. It integrates e-commerce and back-end management software, designed to support Tesla's direct approach to selling and servicing cars.

In early 2016, Vijayan left Tesla to found Tekion Corp, a SaaS company that operated in stealth mode up until late 2019. Tekion is a cloud technology company focused on the automobile retail industry. In 2020, Tekion Corp raised $150 million as part of its series C funding round led by private equity firm Advent International. In 2021, Tekion secured $250 million in a Series D financing round from Alkeon Capital and Durable Capital, resulting in a valuation of over $3.5 billion.

Car companies such as General Motors, Hyundai Motors, Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi, Exor, the parent company of Stellantis, which owns Citroën, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, Ram Trucks, as well as Ferrari, and BMWi Ventures have also invested in Tekion.

Vijayan serves on the board of NIC Inc., a digital government service provider for US federal and state governments, and also sits on the advisory board at Sibros, an over-the-air platform connected to vehicle systems.

Awards and recognition
In 2014, Vijayan received the Tamil American Pioneer – Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Engineering/Science from the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North American.

Vijayan has several patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

In 2023, he was recognized as an Automotive News All-Star for Digital Retail by Automotive News.

Personal life
, Vijayan lives in Palo Alto with his wife and two children.