Satya Narayana was born on 19 August 1967, in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. He belongs to a Telugu-speaking Hindu family. He is the son of Bukkapuram Nadella Yugandhar, an Indian Administrative Service, 1962 batch hailed from Bukkapuram in Ananthapur District, and Prabhavati was a Sanskrit lecturer. Yugandhar’s father migrated from Nadella village in Guntur District to Bukkapuram.
His schooling was done in Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet before receiving a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the “Manipal Institute of Technology” in Karnataka in 1998. Nadella then traveled to the U.S. to study for an MS in computer science at the “The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee”, receiving an MBA from the “University of Chicago Booth School of Business” in 1997.
At Microsoft, Nadella has led major projects that include the company’s move to cloud computing and the development of one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world. He is the executive chairman and CEO of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman. Nadella worked as the senior vice president of research and development for the online services division and vice president of the Microsoft Business Division. Later, he was made the president of Microsoft’s 19 billion server and tools business and led a transformation of the company’s business and technology culture from client services to cloud infrastructure and services. In 2013, Nadella’s base salary was reportedly $669,167. Including stock bonuses, the total compensation stood at around $7.6 Million.
He has been credited for helping bring Microsoft’s Database, Windows Server, and developer tools to its Azure cloud. The revenue from cloud Servers grew to $20.3 billion in June 2013 from $16.6 billion when he took over in 2011. He received $84.5 million in 2016 pay.
Previous positions held by Nadella include:
. President of the Server & Tools Division (9 February 2011 – February 2014)
- Senior Vice-president of Research and Development for the Online Services Division (March 2007 – February 2011)
- Vice-president of the Business Division
- Corporate Vice-president of Business Solutions and Search & Advertising Platform Group
- Executive Vice-president of Cloud and Enterprise group
On 4 February 2014, Nadella was announced as the new CEO of Microsoft, the third CEO in the company’s history, following Bill Gates and Steve Balmer. In October 2014, Nadella attended an event on Women in Computing and courted controversy after he made a statement that women should not ask for a raise and should trust the system. Nadella was criticized for the statement and he later apologized on Twitter. He then sent an email to Microsoft employees admitting he was “Completely wrong.”
Nadella’s tenure at Microsoft has emphasized working with companies and technologies with which Microsoft also competes, including Apple INC, Salesforce, IBM, and Dropbox In contrast to previous Microsoft campaigns against the Linux operating system, Nadella proclaimed that “Microsoft, Linux”, and Microsoft join Linux Foundation as a Platinum member in 2016
Awards and recognition
In 2018, he was a TIME 100 honoree.
In 2019, Nadella was named Financial Times Person of the Year and Fortune Magazine Businessperson of the Year.
In 2020, Nadella was recognized as Global Indian Business Icon at CNBC-TV 18s India Business Leader Awards in Mumbai.
In 2022, Nadella was awarded Padma Bhushan the third highest civilian award in India by the Government of India.