Arunas Chesonis

About Arunas Chesonis

Mr. Chesonis co-founded Safar Partners in early 2019 and is currently one of the Managing Partners of the venture capital fund family with over $1.1 Billion in assets under management. Mr. Chesonis has also served as CEO of Sweetwater Energy and earlier as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PAETEC Holding Corp, a Fortune telecommunications company acquired in 2011 by Windstream Corp.(NASDAQ: WIN), one of the largest national telecom carriers. Mr. Chesonis co-founded PAETEC in 1998.Mr. Chesonis has a long history in sustainability initiatives. His family has supported numerous environmental and renewable energy projects at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to address climate change. He also has personally invested in clean tech, life sciences, and software companies through his involvement at universities in Boston and Rochester. Mr. Chesonis received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the Herbert W. Vanden Brul Entrepreneurial Award by the College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology and was elected to the Rochester Business Hall of Fame.He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MBA from the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester, and an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Rochester. Mr. Chesonis was a member of the M.I.T. Corporation for 10 years and is a life trustee of the University of Rochester.

Experience

1. Managing Partner

   Safar Partners

   Jan 2019 — Present

   Safar Partners is a venture capital/growth capital fund family concentrating on commercializing technologies in the cleantech, advanced materials, life sciences, artificial intelligence, and robotic industries. Primary focus of deal flow is companies spun out of MIT, Harvard, and the University of

Education

• University of Rochester

  Masters, Business Administration

  1991

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  B.S., Civil Engineering

  1984

• University of Rochester

  Honorary Doctorate of Laws

  2004

Skills

• Acquisition Integration
• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Marketing Strategy
• Mergers
• Direct Sales
• Optical Fiber
• Internet Services
• Renewable Energy
• Negotiation
• Proposal Writing
• Executive Management
• Channel Partners
• Data Center
• Employee Engagement
• Program Management
• Product Management
• Information Technology
• Network Design
• Clean Technology
• Management
• Sip
• Leadership Development
• Ethernet
• Leadership
• Broadband
• Product Development
• Ip
• Business Development
• Managed Services
• Mobile Devices
• Co-Location
• Mergers
• Architecture
• Contract Negotiation
• Selling
• Cloud Computing
• Entrepreneurship
• Architectures
• Saas
• Biofuels