Satya Prabhakar

Education and career

Satya Prabhakar was born in Machilipatnam, a small seaside town in Andhra Pradesh, India. He attended Nirmala High School and Hindu College. He then got his Bachelors in Electronics and Communications Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli. He worked at Philips in Chennai for a year as an acoustical engineer.

Prabhakar then joined the University of Florida to get his Masters in Computer Science, doing research in the areas of federated database systems and design. Prabhakar returned to India to consult with Tata Research, Design and Development Center, a subsidiary of Tata Consultancy Services in the areas of knowledge systems design. He went back to Gainesville to get his MBA from the Warrington College of Business Administration at University of Florida.

Prabhakar joined Honeywell in Minneapolis as a research engineer and did research in the areas of real-time operating systems, multimedia systems, federated database integration and published several technical papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. Prabhakar managed several multi-million dollar R&D projects for the US Air Force and Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI). He also collaborated with Georgia Tech and University of Minnesota for technical research. He co-founded the Presto multimedia lab at Honeywell as a platform to develop real-time video and audio technologies. Prabhakar later joined AT&T (then SBC) in Austin, Texas to lead several business and product development efforts in the areas of Internet hosting, e-commerce and interactive TV, and represented AT&T in the Americast interactive TV alliance.

Sulekha.com

Satya Prabhakar co-founded Sulekha.com with his wife, Sangeeta Kshettry, in Austin, Texas and moved the company to India to focus on operations in the country in 2007. The company is backed by investors such as GIC Private Limited, Norwest Venture Partners, Indigo Monsoon Group and Mitsui & Co.. Sulekha has emerged as one of India's leading digital firms focused on being a platform for local services, serving millions of users and local businesses. Today, the company employs more than 1500 employees in 15 offices across India and the US.

Recognition and publications

Prabhakar was recognised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) with an entrepreneurship award. He won the Cabinet Award at AT&T and the Spirit Award at Honeywell for business and technical excellence. Prabhakar was named in "India's Digital Power 100" by Impact magazine. He has been invited to speak in various forums, including at Wharton India Economic Forum, INSEAD, Nanyang Technological University, IIT Bombay, IIM Calcutta, ISB Hyderabad and Nokia Developer Forum. Prabhakar was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus by National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli in 2014. He is a charter member of the TiE and serves on the Board of United Way, Chennai.

Prabhakar has written over 50 technical, business and general interest articles and opinion pieces, which have appeared in publications such as Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal (Mint, Indian edition) and Business Line. He also contributed to the book Black, White and Various Shades of Brown published by Penguin India.

Personal Life

In 1989, Prabhakar married Sangeeta Kshettry, co-founder of Sulekha.com. Prabhakar and Kshettry have two children, Divya and Priya.