Suhas Gopinath

Founder, CEO & Chairman Globals Inc.

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Suhas Gopinath founded Globals Inc. in Bengaluru in 2000, at fourteen, after teaching himself web development from books in an internet café, and became its chief executive at seventeen — a sequence that made him a fixture of mid-2000s business press as, in the phrasing of the time, the world’s youngest CEO. What is more interesting than the origin story is what he did with the following two decades. Globals survived the transition from a teenager’s web-development shop to a multinational IT services business, and has more recently been repositioned around cybersecurity, offering managed security services, security operations centre work, vulnerability testing and niche capability in satellite and space cybersecurity, with a stated focus on the education and public sectors. Alongside the company he has built an unusually policy-facing career for an Indian technology founder, taking advisory roles with the Government of India and the Government of Karnataka, co-chairing FICCI’s ICT work, and joining the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader community. He also founded the point-of-sale consumer-finance venture HappyEMI in 2017.

Career Highlights

• Incorporated Globals Inc. in 2000 at fourteen and became its chief executive at seventeen; he remains founder, CEO and chairman per the company’s own leadership page.
• Repositioned Globals around cybersecurity, spanning managed security services, SOC operations, vulnerability testing, and satellite and space cybersecurity, from a Bengaluru headquarters.
• Named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in the 2008-2009 class, reported at the time as the youngest person to receive the designation.
• Received Karnataka’s Rajyotsava Award in 2005, the youngest of 175 recipients that year.
• Received a Young Achiever Award in December 2007, presented in association with the European Parliament and the International Association for Human Values.
• Founded HappyEMI in 2017, a point-of-sale consumer financing platform, which raised $1 million in seed funding from AJ Ventures and the Jain International Trade Organisation in 2018 and had disbursed roughly 10,000 loans by that point.
• Served in Indian public-policy roles including National Co-Chairman for ICT at FICCI, membership of a national expert advisory committee to the Government of India, and vice-chairmanship of the Government of Karnataka’s Common Control Centre task force during the COVID-19 response.
• Listed by the company as a former World Bank advisory board member and a member of the French President’s Club Young Leaders.

Professional Journey

Gopinath was born in Bengaluru in November 1986 and grew up in a middle-class family there, attending Air Force School. His entry into technology was self-directed rather than institutional: he learned web development from library books and time bought in an internet café, and built commercial websites for overseas clients as a schoolboy. He incorporated Globals Inc. in 2000, at fourteen, initially registering the business outside India because Indian company law would not permit a minor to be a director. He took the chief executive title at seventeen, and the resulting press coverage — from Indian and international outlets alike — established the “world’s youngest CEO” framing that has followed him since. That framing is a media claim rather than a verified record, and is repeated here as such.

Through the 2000s the business grew from web development into a broader IT services company with operations spanning multiple countries, and Gopinath became a recognisable figure on the international young-entrepreneur circuit. The awards of that period — Karnataka’s Rajyotsava Award in 2005, a Young Achiever Award presented in association with the European Parliament in December 2007, and selection into the World Economic Forum’s 2008-2009 Young Global Leader class — established a second track to his career alongside the company itself. The Young Global Leader selection in particular opened the policy door: he was subsequently invited to the World Bank’s ICT leadership roundtable on Africa in late 2008, and it was through that community that he took the Harvard Kennedy School executive-education programme in global leadership and public policy.

That policy track has been sustained. He has served as National Co-Chairman for ICT at FICCI, one of India’s principal industry federations, sat on a national expert advisory committee to the Government of India, and was made vice-chairman of the Government of Karnataka’s Common Control Centre task force during the COVID-19 response — a state-level technology coordination role rather than a ceremonial one. He is also listed as a member of the French President’s Club Young Leaders.

In 2017 he moved into consumer finance, founding HappyEMI, a platform offering point-of-sale instalment financing through retail stores and online merchants, with stated ambitions to extend into education and healthcare lending and to offer interest-free EMI options. The company raised $1 million in seed funding from AJ Ventures and the Jain International Trade Organisation, reported in August 2018, by which point it had disbursed around 10,000 loans at a non-performing rate of roughly two per cent. No public reporting on HappyEMI after 2018 was located, and its present status is unknown. A separate online-to-offline venture, ShopsUp, is also recorded as founded by him in 2017; the relationship between the two, if any, has not been established.

Globals itself has meanwhile narrowed rather than broadened. Its current public positioning is squarely on cyber defence — managed security services, security operations, penetration and vulnerability testing, and space and satellite security — rather than the general IT services of its middle period, a repositioning the company attributes to his direction.

Education

Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bengaluru

Bachelor of Engineering

He also completed a diploma programme in global leadership and public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, following his selection as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. This is executive education rather than a degree, and is recorded here as such. The company additionally lists an honorary fellowship from GITAM University, which is a conferred honour rather than an earned qualification.