 R. Prabhu was born on 31 May 1947 to eminent Coimbatore based educationalist and industrialist P. R. Ramakrishnan and R. Rajeshwari.His father P. R. Ramakrishnan was the first Indian Alumni of MIT Sloan School of Management and a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States who founded Madras Aluminum Company, South India Viscose, Coimbatore Institute of Technology and many other textile industries and two time Member of Parliament representing Indian National Congress from Coimbatore for the 3rd Lok Sabha during the 1962 General Elections  and Pollachi for the 2nd Lok Sabha during the 1957 General Elections.He is also the grandson of eminent industrialist and Indian Civil Service officer Velagapudi Ramakrishna, who founded the KCP group of Industries in Chennai on the maternal side.