12 Facts About Hossein Yassaie

Sir Hossein Yassaie FREng FIET is a British entrepreneur, global business leader and investor in technology sector.

Previously Yassaie was the chief executive officer of Imagination Technologies where he worked from 1992 to 2016 and created one of the leading and most impactful UK-based technology businesses with its technologies enabling and powering many iconic brands.

Hossein Yassaie came to Britain in 1976 from Iran and became a United Kingdom national in 1984.

Hossein Yassaie studied Electronics and Communications at the University of Birmingham gaining a first class honours Bachelor of Science degree in 1979.

Hossein Yassaie stayed at Birmingham to complete a Doctor of Philosophy degree in signal processing on the application of Charge-coupled devices to Sonar.

Hossein Yassaie then spent eight years working at STMicroelectronics and Inmos.

Hossein Yassaie joined Imagination Technologies in 1992, becoming its CEO in June 1998 focusing the business on advanced technology development using the semiconductor intellectual property business model and created the brand Pure.

Hossein Yassaie resigned his position as CEO of Imagination Technologies on 8 February 2016, amid board disagreement on future strategy at a time when global mobile phone market's slow-down started impacting short-term revenues.

Hossein Yassaie was directing Imagination to build the next wave of technologies such as artificial intelligence and ray-tracing to ride out the short-term market conditions.

Hossein Yassaie received a knighthood in the 2013 New Year Honours in recognition of his services to technology and innovation.

Hossein Yassaie was awarded the honorary degree of DUniv by the University of Birmingham in 2013.

Hossein Yassaie is married and has two daughters and two grandsons.