Dr. Thomas Caulfield

Board member since 2018

Dr. Thomas Caulfield was elected to the board of directors as Executive Chairman in April 2025 and has served as a board member since March 2018.

Dr. Caulfield was previously President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GF. He was named CEO in 2018 and led the company’s initial public offering in October 2021, which was not only the largest semiconductor IPO in history at that time, but also the largest IPO across all of Nasdaq that year. He joined GF in May 2014 as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s Fab 8 semiconductor wafer manufacturing facility in Malta, NY. Dr. Caulfield led operations, process development, and the expansion and ramp-up of semiconductor manufacturing production. He has an extensive career spanning over 30 years of engineering, executive management and global operational leadership with leading technology companies.

Prior to joining GF, Dr. Caulfield served as President and Chief Operations Officer (COO) at Soraa from May 2012 to May 2014, the world’s leading developer of GaN on GaNTM (gallium nitride on gallium nitride) solid-state lighting technology. Before Soraa, Dr. Caulfield served as President and COO of Ausra, a leading provider of large-scale concentrated solar power solutions for electrical power generation and industrial steam production. Prior to leading at Ausra, Dr. Caulfield served as Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Customer Service at Novellus Systems, Inc. Before that, Dr. Caulfield spent 17 years at IBM in a variety of senior leadership roles, ultimately serving as vice president of 300mm semiconductor operations for IBM’s Microelectronics division, leading its wafer fabrication and R&D operations in East Fishkill, NY.

He currently serves as a member of the board of directors for Sandisk Corporation (following its spinoff from Western Digital) and was a Trustee for Union College from 2018 to 2025. Previously, he served as a board member of Western Digital Corporation from 2021 to February 2025. Dr. Caulfield earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics from St. Lawrence University before entering Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, where he earned both his Bachelor and Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering as well as a Doctorate in Materials Science and Engineering. Dr. Caulfield was also a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia’s Engineering Center for Strategic Materials.

  • Strategy & Technology Committee Member
  • Nominating & Governance Committee Member