Bluish Capital Founder Joins Smith+Nephew as Corporate Development & Strategy Chief

Smith+Nephew has hired Ajay Dhankhar, Ph.D., as chief Corporate Development & Strategy officer, reporting to CEO Deepak Nath. 

As both a senior management consultant and investment banker, Dr. Dhankhar has advised numerous chief executives and boards at some of the world’s leading healthcare companies to help deliver shareholder value. 

Dr. Dhankhar’s spent 25 years with McKinsey & Company, where he worked as a senior partner and eventually held multiple leadership roles including global head of Strategy across all industries, global head of Strategy and M&A for Life Sciences, and global head of Life Sciences R&D. 

After his McKinsey & Company tenure, Dr. Dhankhar was managing director in the Financial Advisory Healthcare Group of Lazard Ltd., serving as global head of Medical Technology, Diagnostics and Tools. More recently, he founded and led Bluish Capital, a strategy and financial advisory firm that deploys growth capital to support high-quality, recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved assets.

Dr. Dhankhar earned bachelor’s degrees in physics and computer science from Angelo State University, and both a master’s degree and doctorate in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University. 

“Ajay’s unique blend of scientific rigor, strategic insight, business development, integrations, and operational excellence, combined with his entrepreneurial leadership style, makes him exceptionally well-suited to help shape our future,” Nath said. “We are pleased to have him join our leadership team at this time for the company.”

Smith+Nephew is a portfolio medical technology business focused on the repair, regeneration and replacement of soft and hard tissue. Its 17,000 employees invent, develop, and apply new technologies across the company’s three global business units—Orthopaedics, Sports Medicine & ENT, and Advanced Wound Management. Founded in Hull, United Kingdom, in 1856, Smith+Nephew operates in roughly 100 countries and generated $5.8 billion in 2024 sales. Smith+Nephew is a constituent of the FTSE100.