Vashist Nekkanti

“I was born in and have lived in Virginia for most of my life, attending Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) for my undergrad and the University of Michigan for grad school. Growing up, I was lucky to have parents who valued creativity, so I was always playing instruments, painting, or drawing. Today, I still love the arts and humanities. I play the guitar, sometimes in a band, oil paint on weekends, and volunteer in healthcare settings.

That creative foundation naturally turned into curiosity for how systems and ideas work, which is what first drew me toward machine learning and eventually large language models. I loved that AI could be applied to almost anything. You could write classical music one day and metal the next—and that flexibility made the field incredibly exciting to me.

In grad school, my curiosity was put under a different kind of pressure. Every exam, project, peer, and professor made me question my place in the program. Over time, though, I realized that my uncertainty wasn’t a sign I was in the wrong place, but part of developing deeper understanding and resilience. There will always be challenges you don’t feel fully prepared for, but you can still do your best and be proud of what you accomplish.

That experience shaped how I think about growth and problem-solving, and it’s what drew me to SAP NS2’s approach to building and scaling AI. The company’s focus on pushing AI boundaries immediately resonated, and I knew I wanted to be part of building what was next.