Born on 15 July 1947, Dr. Pillai graduated in Electrical Engineering from Madras University, underwent Management Programme at Harvard Business School, and obtained PhD from Pune University and D.Sc from Tumkur University. Dr. Pillai’s four decades of experience in ISRO and DRDO under the great visionary leaders Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, Prof. Satish Dhawan and Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam made him a Technology Leader in the field of launch vehicles and guided missiles. His contributions to the successful development of SLV-3 as a core team member and evolution of PSLV configuration for ISRO have been remarkable.

Dr. Pillai’s skills in networking multiple institutions for the development of critical missile technologies overcoming denial regimes enabled realization of Agni, Prithvi, Nag and Akash missiles under the IGMDP as its Programme Director.

BrahMos Aerospace is a unique Joint Venture, first of its kind between India and Russia to design, develop, produce and market the most advanced supersonic cruise missile. His outstanding leadership qualities made India proud to possess the fastest, highly precise and the most potent missile BRAHMOS which is now inducted in the Indian Armed Forces. BRAHMOS is a world leader in the family of Cruise Missiles surpassing those in the developed countries. As the founder CEO&MD of the Joint Venture, Dr. Pillai is regarded as the “Father of BrahMos” which has become a role model for establishing joint ventures between the countries.

Well-known as a defence technologist in the world, Dr. Pillai has been recognised by many prestigious engineering and management institutions with Fellowships. He has received many Honorary Doctorates from Twelve reputed Universities of India and Russia. The Moscow University of “Security, Defence and Law Enforcement” honoured Dr. Pillai with the “Order of the Peter the Great” and the Academician of the University. Dr. Pillai has published many papers in the international and national journals and conferences. Dr. Pillai has written many books including Revolution in Leadership, Nano Science and Nano Technology for Engineering. He is the co-author with Dr. Kalam for the books (a) Envisioning an Empowered Nation and (b) ‘Thoughts for Change – we can do it’.

Dr. Pillai is a recipient of various prestigious awards including Technology Leadership Award, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Research Award, Organization for Industrial, Spiritual & Cultural Advancement International Award from Japan, Raja Rammohan Puraskar, Lokamanya Tilak Award, Lal Bahadur Shastri Award, Performance Excellence Award from Institution of Industrial Engineering, and most importantly Padma Shri (2002) & Padma Bhushan (2013) by the Govt. of India for his contribution to Aerospace and Missile Technologies and “ORDER OF FRIENDSHIP” by the Govt. of Russian Federation, the highest Russian Award for the foreign citizens of highest order.