The Consumer Electronics Association recognized Eli Harari, co-founder and former CEO of SanDisk Corporation, for his leadership in developing flash memory storage solutions. He was inducted into the association’s Hall of Fame during its Industry Forum held in October 2011 in San Diego, Calif. Harari was honored as being one of the “visionaries who have paved the way for the products and services that are changing the way we live.”

At the end of 2010, Harari retired from SanDisk. By then the company had grown to revenues of almost $5 billion and a 37 percent share of the global flash memory market. The company’s engineers invented flash mass storage cards and pioneered the USB flash drive. These innovative and inexpensive sources of digital storage continue to have a tremendous impact on the photography, music, video and communications industries.

Born in Israel, Harari earned his undergraduate degree in physics at Manchester University, United Kingdom. He later attended Princeton, where he received his Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.