Krishen Iyer professional background includes founding the Encinitas-based Iyer Group Properties. He has had success in serving on governing boards for both UC San Diego and UC Irvine Medical Centers. The Iyer Group is a partnership of companies led by Krishen, who has been in the commercial real estate business since 1979.
In 1978 Krishen Iyer and his wife, Jyoti Iyer, successfully purchased a $500 house in La Mesa where they then raised their five children. In 1976 he attended UCLA where he studied Electrical Engineering before eventually graduating with a Master’s Degree in Business Economics from the University of Southern California.
He also holds an undergraduate degree from Mysore University in India. Krishen was the first Indian American student to receive a scholarship to attend Stanford University. Here, he graduated with an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering. The business expert and serial entrepreneur Krishen Iyer then attended UCLA where he studied for his Masters Degree in Economics.
He began his career working in the field of electronics, developing solid state circuits at Western Microwave Inc., a Raytheon Company in Los Angeles. Krishen Iyer recalls how it was there that his interests turned towards real estate, especially around the time he and Jyoti purchased their first home. In 1979 he went back to Stanford to obtain a second degree in Business Economics.
In 1981 Krishen and his first wife, Jyoti, purchased their first home in Encinitas. The couple raised five children in the house Krishen built himself. His wife, who had worked as a nurse, died of breast cancer in 1995. “She was my rock,” he told the San Diego Union-Tribune. Krishen Iyer then married his current wife, Sheila Kanwar-Iyer, a sports therapist and psychotherapist who has an MBA from USC; they have two daughters together as well as two from Krishen’s first marriage.