Dr. Jai Nagarkatti serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, a $2 billion global life science company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Nagarkatti joined the company as a chemist in 1976 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was named President of the Aldrich Chemical Company in 1987. In 2000, he transferred to St. Louis to lead the Company’s Fine Chemical Division and in 2003 became the President of the Scientific Research Division, the Company’s largest business unit. In August 2004 Jai was promoted to President and Chief Operating Officer and he became President and Chief Executive Officer on January 1, 2006.

Prior to joining the company, he worked from 1968 thru 1970 as a Chemistry Department Lecturer at Osmania University in Hyderabad, India where he was born and earned his Master’s Degree in Organic Chemistry. Jai earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at Texas A&M University-Commerce in 1976 and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 2004.

Now a U.S. citizen, Jai resides in St. Louis with his wife Susan. Dr. Nagarkatti serves on the boards of a number of scientific and academic institutions that include: The Saint Louis Science Center, The Missouri Botanical Gardens, The Engineering School of Washington University ­ St. Louis and is a Trustee at Washington University ­ St. Louis.

More about the Charles D. Hurd Lectures