Jay led Illumina as CEO from 1999 until 2016, served as Executive Chairman from July 2016 to December 2019, and now serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors. During his tenure as CEO, he took the company from $1.3 million in sales in 2000 to $2.2 billion in 2015, representing a compound annual growth rate of 64 percent. He oversaw the company’s expansion from microarrays into next-generation sequencing with the acquisition of Solexa in 2006, and from research into clinical and applied markets. Under his leadership, Illumina was named multiple times to the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 and Fast 500 lists, as well as to the Forbes 25 Fastest-Growing Tech Companies (2007, 2009 and 2010), the Fortune 100 Fastest-Growing Companies (2010 and 2011) lists, and recognition by MIT Technology Review as the World’s Smartest Company in 2014.

In addition to his work at Illumina, he serves on the Boards of Directors at Coherent, Denali, Iridia, on the Board of Trustees for The Salk Institute, and is an Advisory Board member for UC San Diego’s Moores Cancer Center.

Previously, Jay served on the Board of Juno Therapeutics until their acquisition by Celgene in 2018, and served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Molecular Dynamics, later acquired by Amersham Pharmacia Biotech and now a part of GE Healthcare. As a co-founder and member of the board of directors for Molecular Dynamics he led the company to its initial public offering in 1993. While there, he also helped Molecular Dynamics develop and launch over 15 major instrumentation systems, including the first capillary-based DNA sequencer. Prior to joining Molecular Dynamics, Jay was Vice President of Engineering and Strategic Planning for Plexus Computers, Executive Vice President for Manning Technologies and held various positions at Spectra Physics.

Jay received a B.A. in economics from Claremont McKenna College and a B.S. and M.S. (summa cum laude) in industrial engineering from Stanford University.