Silver Lake has hired John Chen, chief executive officer of mobile information services company Sybase, as a senior advisor.
Chen, whose last day at Sybase was 31 October, joins Silver Lake’s value creation team in the firm’s Silicon Valley office, where he will help evaluate potential investments and implement operational improvements and other strategic initiatives. His hiring brings the total number of senior advisors on the firm’s value creation team to four.
“[Chen’s] deep roots in the technology sector, with more than three decades of operational experience, as well as expertise on a range of political and economic policy issues, especially in Asia, will be extremely valuable,” Silver Lake managing director and head of value creation Charles Giancarlo said in a statement.
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John Chen |
The firm was unavailable for comment at press time.
Chen has held the role of chairman and CEO of Sybase since 1998, prior to which he was CEO and president of Siemens Pyramid, a $3 billion division of information technology company Siemens Nixdorf.
Silver Lake typically invests in large-cap technology or technology-enabled service companies, and is currently in market with its fourth fund targeting $7.5 billion, according to documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Last year, the firm sold Internet messaging service Skype for $8.5 billion.
Silver Lake was founded in 1999 by Jim Davidson, Glenn Hutchins and David Roux. The firm has around $14 billion in assets under management and maintains offices in San Francisco, Menlo Park, New York, London, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
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