Drishti Hires CEO as Manufacturing Technology Company Grows

Drishti Technologies, Inc., a company known for its AI-powered production technology, has named Gary Jackson as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Jackson employment signals the end of an era, as his predecessor, Dr Prasad Akella, the Founder and CEO of the company, transitions to a position as Chairman of the Board and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO). Akella will continue his industry pioneering role in setting the direction for the emerging category of action recognition technology, which is deriving data and insights from video streams using AI and advancing the fourth era of manufacturing, AI-powered production. 

‘Drishti is built on the foundational principles that people remain central to driving significant improvements across the entire factory, including productivity, quality and training, and that AI-over-video is the next generation of sensing to enable them,” said Akella. “Our growing suite of business applications built on information extracted from the video stream empowers the manufacturing team — from line associates to the CEO — to make better decisions faster, perform at their best and experience greater job satisfaction. I look forward to Gary’s deep go-to-market and leadership experience, which will help propel Drishti from our extraordinary two dozen customers to every line of every plant in the world, simultaneously boosting human empowerment and manufacturing excellence.’

Inbound CEOs Impact

As CEO, Jackson will be put in the hot seat, taking control of the company’s operational strategy and execution. This shouldn’t be a problem, though, given that Jackon is an incredibly experienced leader within the early-stage enterprise technology company space, and he will likely tap into his extensive network within the go-to-market space, which will complement Prasad’s vision and manufacturing knowledge, as well as ‘Co-Founder and CTO Dr Krishnendu Chaudhury’s deep expertise in AI, neural networks and computer vision’, to help drive Drishti’s awareness, sales and growth. 

‘Prasad, Krishnendu and the Drishti team have developed an entirely new solution category, and this represents a turning point for the manufacturing industry,” said Jackson. “The opportunity to lead a company that is the first of its kind, and is already deploying a new but proven technology at scale with some of the world’s largest manufacturers, doesn’t come around often. I’m delighted to be a part of this company’s very positive future.’

‘Drishti has also named Joseph Cowan to its board of directors. Cowan is a five-time CEO, including at Epicor and Manugistics. Joe’s operating experience accelerating enterprise growth and significant background selling enterprise software to manufacturers will be invaluable at Drishti.

‘Building a new company, let alone creating a whole new category, is no easy feat,” said Cowan. “What Dr Akella and [the] team have accomplished to date is proof that Drishti is the next big thing in manufacturing.’