Shankar Mahadevan is an Indian playback singer and music composer in the successful music composer trio group famously known as Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. Mahadevan is trained in Hindustani classical music and Carnatic music and began his career as a singer but shot to fame as a music composer. Mahadevan studied music under Shrinivas Khale, a Marathi composer. He attended school in Chembur, and later graduated with a degree in computer science from the Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology, located in Navi Mumbai. After this, he began his career as a software engineer for Oracle. His interest in music however drew him to quit his job and pursue a career in music. He joined the fusion jazz band Silk, with Louis Banks on keyboards, Sivamani on percussion, Sridhar Parthasarathy on the mridangam and Karl Peters on bass. He also began singing in Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, and Marathi. Mahadevan’s first claim to fame came with the release of his album Breathless. ‘Koi jo mila' , one of the most iconic songs in the album was technically engineered to create a sense of uninterrupted recording and it became an instant hit. Mahadevan then went on to sing in a few films and jingles. In 1997, he collaborated with Ehsaan and Loy for Mukul Anand's Dus (1997). The film remained unreleased but the album became an instant hit and the trio entered into a collaboration for music composition.

The three entered the music scene in India as a non-film band that performed rock, jazz, blues, and pop. Their innovative mixing of techno-sounds with the classical traditions brought them to the forefront and soon they followed the precedent set by many successful music composition teams in the past such as Lakshmikant-Pyarelal, Shankar-Jaikishan, Jatin-Lalit etc. Their music in films such as Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Bunty Aur Babli (2005), Bluffmaster (2005), Kal Ho Na Ho (2008), Rock On!! (2008), Wake Up Sid (2009), Don 2 (2011), Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011), and recently for the films 2 States (2014), Dil Dhadakne Do (2015) and Ghayal Once Again (2016); have established them as one of the most successful teams of music composers in recent history.

Mahadevan won the Filmfare R D Burman Award for New Music Talent for Dil Chahta Hai (2001) within this collaboration. He also won the National Film Awards for his solo performances in "Maa" (Taare Zameen Par, 2007), and "Bolo Na" (Chittagong, 2012).

Over the next one and half decade, the trio composed music for films, musicals, advertisements and jingles. Some of the brands for which they have worked are Sennheiser, Aircel, Reliance, and Radio One 94.3.

Recently the trio launched their own record label, SEL Songs and an iPhone app for the same. Another great achievement of Shankar Mahadevan is the Shankar Mahadevan Academy, a resource he founded that aims to provide online music lessons in Indian music for students all over the world.

Shankar Mahadevan also dabbled in acting, and has played roles in the Doordarshan serial Ek Se Badhakar Ek (1996), as well as the Marathi film Katyr Kaljat Ghusali (2015), thus proving that he has a multitude of talents not limited to the musical domain.