Ramabadran Gopalakrishnan (born 25 December 1945) is an Indian businessman and author. Until his retirement he was an executive director of Tata Sons Ltd and served on the boards of

Tata Power Tata Power Company Limited is an Indian electric utility and electricity generation company based in Mumbai, India and is part of the Tata Group. With an installed electricity generation capacity of 14,707 MW out of which 5847 MW is from Non-C ...

Tata Technologies Tata Technologies Limited is an Indian multinational technology company engaged in product engineering, that provides services to automotive and aerospace original equipment manufacturers as well as industrial machinery companies. It is a sub ...

AkzoNobel Akzo Nobel N.V., stylised as AkzoNobel, is a Dutch multinational corporation, multinational company which creates paints and performance coatings for both industry and consumers worldwide. Headquartered in Amsterdam, the company has activities ...

India, Castrol India and ABP Pvt. Ltd. Before joining Tata he was Vice Chairman of

Hindustan Lever Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is an Indian fast-moving consumer goods company, headquartered in Mumbai. It is a subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch company Unilever. Its products include foods, beverages, cleaning agents, personal care products a ...

, the Indian subsidiary of Unilever plc. Gopalakrishnan earned a bachelor's degree in physics from

St Xavier's College A multitude of schools and universities have been named after St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Roman Catholic saint and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. This page lists notable educational institutions named after St. Xavier, arranged by country a ...

Calcutta University The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

, a bachelor's degree in Electronics from

IIT Kharagpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur or IIT-KGP) is a public institute of technology, research university, and autonomous institute established by the Government of India in Kharagpur, West Bengal. Founded in 1951, the in ...

in 1967 and did a six-week Advanced Management Programme from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

, United States. He has lived and worked in India, the UK and Saudi Arabia. He began his career in 1967 as a computer analyst with

. He worked in the marketing function before moving to general management. During his years with

Unilever Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...

, he was based in

Jeddah Jeddah ( ), alternatively transliterated as Jedda, Jiddah or Jidda ( ; , ), is a List of governorates of Saudi Arabia, governorate and the largest city in Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia, and the country's second largest city after Riyadh, located ...

as CEO of the Arabia unit; later, he was managing director of

Brooke Bond Brooke Bond is a brand of tea owned by Lipton Teas and Infusions, except in India, Nepal, and Indonesia where it is owned by Unilever. Brooke Bond was formerly an independent tea- trading and manufacturing company in the United Kingdom, known ...

Lipton Lipton is a brand named after its founder, Sir Thomas Lipton, Tom Lipton, who started an eponymous grocery retail business in the United Kingdom in 1871. The brand was used for various consumer goods sold in Lipton stores, including tea from 1 ...

India and then vice-chairman with Hindustan Lever. He has been president of the

All India Management Association All India Management Association (AIMA) is the national apex body of the management profession in India. A not-for-profit, non-lobbying organisation, working closely with Industry, Government, Academia and students to further the cause of the ...

. He is married and has three children.

Publications

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References

External links

R. Gopalakrishnan
at

Penguin India Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a smal ...

1949 births Living people St. Xavier's College, Kolkata alumni University of Calcutta alumni Tata Group people IIT Kharagpur alumni Indian chief executives {{India-business-bio-stub