[citation needed][11] Upon graduating from Tufts, Akula returned to India for a short while in 1990 and worked with the Deccan Development Society, a small grassroots rural non-profit organization.

He outlines his philosophy in his book, A Fistful of Rice; My Unexpected Quest to End Poverty Through Profitability, published by Harvard Business Press in 2010.

[14] SKS raised additional equity from Infosys founder Narayan Murthy and Bajaj Allianz, which represented the first-ever microfinance investment by an insurance company.

[15][16] In mid-August 2010, SKS Microfinance had an initial public offering (IPO) on the Bombay Stock Exchange, which raised $350 million and was oversubscribed 14 times and which included anchor investors such as George Soros.

[20][21] When founding SKS, Akula drew inspiration from the work of Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize winner and founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, one of the world's first microfinance organizations.

[23][24] In an investigative article, Erika Kinetz of the Associated Press, wrote,"a profound shift in values and incentives at SKS began in 2008" when Akula left the CEO role.

It joined U.S. private equity firm Sequoia Capital, which funded Google and Apple and is SKS' largest shareholder, on the board of directors.

"In spring 2011, Akula began circulating a plan to spend $10 million to train financial counselors who would make sure clients weren't getting into too much debt and used their loans productively, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the proposal.