Shyam Sankar is the Director of Forward Deployed Engineering at Palantir Technologies.
As Director, Shyam is responsible for helping Palantir scale its operations and expand its global presence. In addition to day to day management of the entire company, Shyam leads Palantir’s Government, Commercial, and Philanthropy engineering teams and maintains oversight of all deployments worldwide. A computer scientist, Shyam developed Palantir’s unique Forward Deployed Engineering approach, in which all customer outreach, user engagement, and product development is handled by qualified technical experts.
Prior to Palantir, Shyam was Director of Business Development for Xoom Corporation, an international money transfer service funded by leading Silicon Valley venture capitalists. At Xoom, he developed a global network of financial institutions providing low-cost remittance services to immigrant communities in Africa, Southeast Asia, India, and Latin America.
Shyam has been profiled by media sources including the Wall Street Journal, CNN, National Public Radio, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Forbes. He has been a featured speaker at the 2013 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos, TED 2010, and TED Global 2012. He blogs regularly on government, technology and entrepreneurship at www.shyamsankar.com/.
Shyam earned a B.S. in electrical and computer engineering from Cornell University and an M.S. in management science and engineering from Stanford University. His interests include developmental economics, cycling, and encouraging young people to solve critical problems through technology. Shyam is married to Pooja Nath Sankar, founder and CEO of Piazza, a collaborative learning platform. They are the proud parents of a boy, Arjun, born June 2012.