Niraj Shah

Niraj Shah is the co-founder, co-chairman, and CEO of Wayfair, the largest online retailer of home furnishings, housewares, and home improvement goods in the United States. He and Cornell classmate Steve Conine launched the company in 2002, growing it into a nationwide retail powerhouse.

Born in 1973 or 1974, Shah grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the son of Indian immigrants. His father worked as a mechanical engineer at General Electric; his grandfather ran a steel business in India. He earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Cornell University in 1995.

Before Wayfair, Shah built his entrepreneurial background as CEO and co-founder of Simplify Mobile and through an earlier venture, Spinners. That tech and mobile experience informed his approach to scaling an online business.

Under his leadership, Wayfair's share price surpassed $70 in 2017, making Shah and Conine billionaires; his net worth was estimated at $1.6 billion by 2022. Fortune named him to its "40 under 40" list in 2013. From 2017 to 2019, he served as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, bringing a business voice to monetary policy.

Today, Shah remains at the helm of Wayfair from its Boston headquarters. He lives in Back Bay with his wife Jill and their two children. The couple founded the Shah Family Foundation in 2017 to support education and healthcare. Jill previously sold her alternative medicine directory Jill's List to Mindbody and now oversees Wayfair's Boston office.