Rekhi: Excelan hired HP exec as CEO for Wall Street IPO optics
Kanwal Rekhi · Wall Street Rejected This CEO & Then He Did a $200M IPO | Kanwal Rekhi · Jan 23, 2026 · at 24:35
Kanwal Rekhi, co-founder of Excelan, describes stepping aside as CEO ahead of Excelan's 1987 IPO due to board concerns about Wall Street accepting an Indian founder.
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“Board is telling me that, yeah, we are going to have to put a CEO here who looked like a wall street. Yeah. Acceptable CEO. Yeah. This is like a star from the central casting. So we hired, you know, this guy from HP as it was general manager of a division and did more. So he got hired two months before the IPO. As a CEO, you know, as I had to step aside”
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