Sujaya Rai is born in Mangalore in a lower middle class family. She has studied in Kannada medium and started her career in Indian Technical Institute as a Secretary.
Later she moved to Mumbai and started working in the NGO Sector. The work in the social sector appealed her so much that she decided to continue in the sector and did her MBA in Social Entrepreneurship from Narsee Monji after having first child. The MBA helped her in the career growth in the sector.
At present she is working as a Program Director at Sujaya Foundation for the past 15 years. She overseas 35 staff and various projects of the NGO. Sujaya Foundation trains 300 specially abled and 700 abled youth in IT literacy, spoken English, soft skills and provide placements.
She is instrumental in starting two BPOs for specially abled- one in Mumbai and another in Navi Mumbai with NMMC&39; ETC. Through these BPOs they process around 25000 cheque entries for HDFC Bank.