Born in 1953 in a village in the Dakshina Kannada district of India, Shetty is the eighth of nine siblings.

Shetty developed a passion for heart surgery at a young age after hearing about Christiaan Barnard, South African surgeon who performed the world’s first heart transplant. This interest laid foundations for his future career.
Shetty studied at St. Aloysius School, Mangaluru, and obtained his Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) in 1979. He continued his studies with post-graduate work in general surgery at Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, and finally obtained his professional qualification as a senior surgeon (FRCS) from the Royal College in England. 
In 1989, he returned to India to work at the BM Birla Hospital in Kolkata.

There he achieved his first feat, performing the country’s first neonatal heart surgery on a 9-days-old baby.

Following an operation on Mother Teresa, who had suffered a heart attack, he became her personal doctor for the last five years of her life.
« Mother Teresa was the inspiration behind Narayana Hrudayalaya ».
Then, he moved to Bangalore to set up the Manipal Heart Foundation, a foundation that partners with small hospitals to provide better heart treatments.

It was in 2000 that Shetty’s entrepreneurial vision took shape with creation of Narayana Hrudayalaya, a multi-speciality hospital in Bommasandra, close to Bangalore.

According to Shetty, healthcare costs can be reduced by 50% over the next 5 to 10 years if hospitals implement idea of economies of scale. These economies allow him to provide heart surgery at a lower cost than in the United States. To achieve this, he is reducing operating costs by, for example, using cross ventilation instead of air conditioning. Every element of hospital is designed to make greatest savings without impacting surgery quality, enables poorest patients to benefit from best care. It also eliminates many pre-operative tests and innovates in patient care with « the writing and training of patients’ family members to administer post-surgical care ». 
The hospital quickly developed its specialities, including cardiology, neurosurgery, paediatric surgery, haematology, transplantation and nephrology.

As a result, the cardiac hospital became one of the largest in India, performing more than 30 heart operations a day.

In August 2012, Shetty announced an agreement with TriMedx, a subsidiary of Ascension Health, to create a joint venture for a chain of hospitals in India. Narayana Health, which has over 7,000 beds in more than 30 hospitals across India, has been recognised for providing innovative, high-quality healthcare at affordable prices.
In 2015, Devi Shetty listed her company on two stock exchanges: Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange, the most powerful in the country. At inception, company was valued at over a billion dollars.
From 2016, NH increased its presence in New Delhi, Gurgaon and Mumbai, introducing more premium surgeries to boost margins. Then in 2022, the company announced plans to create a 1,000-bed specialist hospital in Calcutta.  

Altruistic by nature, Devi Shetty believes that we can do even more to help people of India.

With the help of Karnataka government, he set up Yeshasvini, a low-cost health insurance scheme for the state’s poor farmers. Today, more than 4 million people are covered.
Devi Shetty lives in Bangalore with his wife and four children. The family holds over 65% of shares in the company (11% for Devi Shetty). He is often seen in his trademark blue surgeon’s outfit.