Satya Nadella
Satya Narayana Nadella (/nəˈdɛlə/; born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-American business executive. He is the executive chairman and CEO of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO[2][3] and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman.[4][5] Before becoming CEO, he was the executive vice president of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise group, responsible for building and running the company's computing platforms.[6]
Satya Nadella
Early life
Nadella was born on 19 August 1967 in Hyderabad into a Telugu Hindu family.[7][8][9][10] His mother Prabhavati was a Sanskrit lecturer.[11] His father, Bukkapuram Nadella Yugandhar, was an Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1962 batch.[12][13][9] Yugandhar hailed from Bukkapuram in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh;[14][15] his own father had migrated to Bukkapuram from Nadella village in Guntur district (present-day Palnadu district) of Andhra Pradesh.[16][17]
Nadella attended the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet[18] before receiving a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka in 1988.[19][20] He then traveled to the United States to study for an MS in computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee,[21] receiving his degree in 1990.[22] He received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1997.[23][24]
Career
Sun Microsystems
Nadella worked at Sun Microsystems as a member of its technology staff before joining Microsoft in 1992.[25]
Awards and recognition
In 2018 and 2024, he was a Time 100 honoree.[59][60]
In 2019, Nadella was named Financial Times Person of the Year and Fortune magazine Businessperson of the Year.[61][62]
In 2020, Nadella was recognized as Global Indian Business Icon at CNBC-TV18's India Business Leader Awards in Mumbai.[63]
In 2022, the Government of India awarded Nadella the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in India.[64]
Nadella was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in January 2024.[65]
Personal life
In 1992, Nadella married Anupama, the daughter of his father's IAS batchmate. Both Nadella and Anupama are the only children from their parents.[66] She was his junior at Manipal pursuing a B.Arch in the Faculty of Architecture.[67] The couple have three children, a son (deceased) and two daughters, and live in Clyde Hill[68] and Bellevue, Washington.[69] His son Zain was a legally blind quadriplegic with cerebral palsy.[70] Zain died in February 2022, at the age of 26.[71] According to Nadella, being the father of a child with special needs was a turning point in his life.[72]
Nadella is an avid reader of American and Indian poetry and enjoys cricket, having played on his school team.[73] He credits cricket for improving his leadership skills.[74]
Nadella and his wife Anupama are part of the ownership group of Seattle Sounders FC, a Major League Soccer club.[75]
Nadella has authored a book titled Hit Refresh that explores his life, his career in Microsoft and how he believes technology will shape the future. He announced that the profits from the book would go to Microsoft Philanthropies and through that to nonprofit organizations.[76]