BS People: Anand Prahlad

McAfee promotes virus hunter

The appointment of Anand Prahlad as the managing director of US-based computer security software company McAfee’s India operations was essentially a thumbs-up for his work as the vice-president (VP) of the company since 2010. Prahlad, who joined McAfee India as VP engineering in the endpoint security group, was previously with US-based CommVault.

In his new role, Prahlad will lead R&D, innovation and brand-building for McAfee in India, which has got a team of 1,000 R&D engineers. At the time that Anand decided to shift base to India from the US, after a stint of 16 years with CommVault, he had already demonstrated that he was able to successfully grow a business. Yet, it was only his second corporate job, which he got after completing a master’s in electrical engineering. When he joined the product development team there, it was a small business segment of AT&T, which eventually went public in 2006. Prahlad ended up moving from storage technologies at CommVault to security solutions when he came to McAfee.

By 2010, he realised that he wanted to move back home to Bangalore, given the right opportunity. “When I decided to move back home, I also had a plan to build a strong ecosystem in India for budding engineers,” says Prahlad. An angel investor and a member of the Indian Angel Networks, Prahlad has invested in three companies to date and is scouting around for more ventures. Apart from playing the role of a tech maven as well as investor, Prahalad is an avid reader, with interests in leadership and history. He holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Marquette University and a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering from Andhra Pradesh.