Eli Harari co-founded SunDisk, later renamed SanDisk, in 1988 and led the company for more than two decades. The title “chairman, CEO and president” is misleading if read as three offices held simultaneously: he was president and CEO from 1988, but became chairman in June 2006 and stepped down as president at that time. Harari retired from SanDisk leadership at the end of 2010.
Was Eli Harari chairman, CEO and president of SanDisk?
Not all at once, according to SanDisk’s SEC filing. Harari served as president from June 1988 until June 2006 and as CEO from June 1988. In June 2006, he became chairman while continuing as CEO; Sanjay Mehrotra became president effective June 1, 2006. The company’s current leadership page names David Goeckeler as chairman and CEO, so Harari’s titles are historical, not current.
How Harari founded SanDisk
Harari co-founded SunDisk in 1988 with Sanjay Mehrotra and Jack Yuan. The company later changed its name to SanDisk. In his Computer History Museum oral history, Harari recalled seeing an opportunity to build mass storage around flash memory: “I felt that flash was coming around the horizon and that it was beginning to look like the right time to develop a mass storage based on flash memory.” The oral history describes the company’s beginnings and the name change.
The National Inventors Hall of Fame connects the venture to Harari’s ambition to develop system-level flash storage. That framing matters: SanDisk’s products and company history were the work of a founding team and organization, not one person acting alone.
#1 Best Overall
- High-speed USB 3.0 performance of up to 150MB/s(1) [(1) Write to drive up to 15x faster than standard USB 2.0 drives (4MB/s); varies by drive capacity. Up to 150MB/s read speed. USB 3.0 port required. Based on internal testing; performance may be lower depending on host device, usage conditions, and other factors; 1MB=1,000,000 bytes]
- Transfer a full-length movie in less than 30 seconds(2) [(2) Based on 1.2GB MPEG-4 video transfer with USB 3.0 host device. Results may vary based on host device, file attributes and other factors]
- Transfer to drive up to 15 times faster than standard USB 2.0 drives(1)
- Sleek, durable metal casing
- Easy-to-use password protection for your private files(3) [(3)Password protection uses 128-bit AES encryption and is supported by Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Mac OS X v10.9 plus; Software download required for Mac, visit the SanDisk SecureAccess support page]
Harari’s technical background and patents
Harari earned a Ph.D. in Solid State Sciences from Princeton in 1973. Before founding SunDisk, he held technical and management roles in the semiconductor and electronics industries and founded and led Waferscale Integration from 1983 to 1988, according to SanDisk’s SEC filing.
The National Inventors Hall of Fame credits Harari’s work with floating-gate EEPROM, a form of electrically erasable programmable read-only memory, with helping make practical electrically erasable memory. SanDisk’s 2009 SEC filing reported that Harari held more than 100 issued patents in non-volatile memories and storage systems. That is a filing-era figure, not a current patent count.
Rank #2
- Transfer speeds up to 10x faster than standard USB 2.0 drives (4MB/s); up to 130MB/s read speed; USB 3.0 port required. Based on internal testing; performance may be lower depending upon host device. 1MB=1,000,000 bytes
- Backward compatible with USB 2.0
- Secure file encryption and password protection(2)
Harari’s SanDisk leadership timeline
| Period | Role or milestone |
|---|---|
| 1973 | Earned a Ph.D. in Solid State Sciences from Princeton. |
| 1983–1988 | Founded and led Waferscale Integration before co-founding SunDisk. |
| 1988 | Co-founded SunDisk, later renamed SanDisk; became CEO and president. |
| June 2006 | Became chairman and continued as CEO; relinquished the presidency to Sanjay Mehrotra. |
| End of 2010 | Retired from SanDisk leadership. |
| Current leadership page, accessed October 1, 2026 | SanDisk identifies David Goeckeler as chairman and CEO. |
The Computer History Museum says Harari retired as CEO at the end of 2010, while the National Inventors Hall of Fame describes his 2010 retirement as chairman and CEO. These sources establish his departure from SanDisk leadership; they do not provide a complete account of his work after 2010.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why the distinction between the titles matters
President, CEO and chairman refer to different responsibilities, and SanDisk’s 2006 leadership change illustrates that they need not belong to one person. Harari’s presidency ended when Mehrotra took the role; Harari retained the CEO position and became chairman. Describing him simply as “chairman, CEO and president” obscures that transition and can wrongly suggest that the titles applied together or still do.
Quick Recap
Rank #4
- Transfer speeds up to 10x faster than standard USB 2.0 drives (4MB/s); up to 130MB/s read speed; USB 3.0 port required. Based on internal testing; performance may be lower depending upon host device. 1MB=1,000,000 bytes
- Backward compatible with USB 2.0
- Secure file encryption and password protection(2)
Rank #3
- Reliable storage for photos, videos, music and other files
- Available in capacities from 8GB to 256GB (1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes - Actual user storage less)
- Transfer with confidence when moving images and other content
- Retractable design keeps the connector safe
- SanDisk SecureAcces software with 128-bit AES encryption and password protection(1)
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