Ajay Dhankhar serves as Global Head of Medical Technology, Tools, and Diagnostics at Lazard and additionally co-leads client service to numerous Large Pharma and Biotech clients. Previously, he was the global co-leader of McKinsey’s M&A, strategy, finance, R&D and risk practices for the Life Sciences Sector and served as a senior master faculty of McKinsey’s partner training and other governance committees.

Ajay has helped deliver more than 50 major transactions, including one of the top-five largest restructurings in the financial industry, and four of the top ten in healthcare. He has extensive experience in corporate and business-unit strategy, portfolio transformations including divestments, capital management, activist investor responses, enterprise risk, and large-scale post-merger integrations. He has also led overall client service for multiple healthcare and other sector companies across North America, Europe, and Asia, is a thought leader on M&A and strategy, and regularly publishes in leading journals.

Within Biotech, Medical Devices, Diagnostics, and Tools, Ajay has executed M&A in and conducted numerous strategic assessments of the segments where value will be created including Gen editing, Gene therapy, MABs, small molecules, specialty pharma, CDMOs, Surgery, Robotics, NGS, Liquid Biopsy implications, Advanced Wound Care, Orthopaedics, Imaging and Diabetes, to name a few. He has also worked with 10+ PE companies on asset assessments within Biotech, Medical Devices, Diagnostics, Tools, HCIT, carve-outs from strategics to PE, and creation of “100-Day” and 1-, 3-, 5- year detailed value creation plans.

Ajay is a frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences including AdvaMed, PhRMA and others, He has numerous publications in journals such as McKinsey digital, Nature Reviews, Journal of Neurophysiology, Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among others.

Outside of work, Ajay enjoys golf (5 handicap) and skiing with his family and friends and serving on the boards of several not-for-profit institutions including The Antara Foundation, Newark Academy, and the Yale Graduate School Alumni Association.

Ajay holds a Ph.D. and an MPhil in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University where he was a University Fellow, and a B.S. in Physics and Computer Science from Angelo State University where he was a Presidential Award winner.