Chetna Bindra

Chetna Bindra, Ph.D., is the business development director for SRI International’s Vision Technologies group. In this role, she builds business with government and commercial customers across a wide range of technologies. She focuses on identifying new opportunities and strategic areas, as well as expanding SRI’s working relationships with defense and civilian government agencies and select commercial entities.

Bindra has launched creative research and development programs that span early- and mid-stage technologies to late-stage developments that target technology transition. She has a deep understanding of the technologies, value propositions, and user requirements. She has worked in market areas such as ground robotics, education and training, unmanned aerial vehicles, surveillance, mobile platforms, and information technology.

Bindra has experience spinning off new venture-backed companies, including incubation and funding and hiring rounds. She has played key roles in market analysis, technical competitive analysis, and positioning to attract venture capital funding at onset and through various milestones. Within a venture-backed, start-up company using electrostatic technology for manufacturing, Bindra managed technical development and led a team of more than 30 multidisciplinary personnel. In this effort, she focused on critical technology paths, minimizing burn rate and managing expectations and milestones between the technical and financial teams.

Earlier in her career at Sarnoff Corporation, which became part of SRI in 2011, Bindra was technical manager for a group of 20 multidisciplinary technical personnel, including Ph.Ds. She was responsible for setting technical direction, generating external funding, and garnering interest from external commercial and government entities in various nascent, early-stage, leading-edge technologies.

Bindra has a M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from University of Pennsylvania.