R GOPALAKRISHNAN

Career

R. Gopalakrishnan (Gopal) is an Independent Director & Non-Executive Chairman for Castrol India Limited. He is also an Independent Director for the Press Trust of India (PTI). He brings with him an extensive corporate experience of nearly 55 years, of which 31 years were with Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) / Unilever and 18 years with the Tata Group. He has a rich experience of over 34 years of serving across the boards of several companies.

Notable roles that Mr. Gopalakrishnan has held in his corporate career include that of Chairman of Unilever Arabia, based in Jeddah and Managing Director of Brooke Bond Lipton India, based in Bengaluru. He has also served as the Vice Chairman of HLL and Executive Director of Tata Sons Limited and other Tata companies. 

He is passionate about mentoring start-ups and enjoys mentoring corporate managers through his talks and writing. He is actively engaged in motivational speaking and has delivered over 100 keynotes in India and abroad. Mr. Gopalakrishnan is also a prolific management writer and has authored 17 books and penned several newspaper columns and discourses on a variety of corporate topics. 

He studied physics at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and did his Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. Later, he completed an Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School, USA.