P Raghavendran

P Raghavendran

Ex-Senior President, Reliance Industries(RIL)

An alumnus of IIT, Madras has the distinction of receiving the President of India award for the best student in the graduating class of 69. He obtained an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (MIT) in 1983. At MIT, he worked in the System Dynamics Lab with the stalwarts in the field such as Prof Jay Forrester, Prof John D Sterman and Prof Peter Senge.

His career spans more than five decades in the oil industry in India covering assignments in the Public, Private and Government sectors. In the second half of his career, as President of Reliance Industries Ltd, he helped RIL to set up the world’s largest grassroots refinery at Jamnagar and set up the various business systems on commissioning of the refinery in 1999. He also pioneered the Reliance Petro-retailing business which heralded retail automation in India leading to its remarkable market success. He was also responsible for setting up from scratch marketing of LPG, Aviation and Industrial Products. He was also responsible for acquiring a sick petroleum marketing company in East Africa, a turnaround of the same and exit through sale to an Oil MNC.

During the earlier half of his career, he headed the Eastern Region of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL). He executed marketing responsibilities in W Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Northeastern states, Sikkim, Bhutan and A & N Islands.

He held several industry roles during his long career. He was Vice-Chairman of the Petroleum Federation of India, an association of all oil companies in India, from its inception (2002) until it was transformed into its successor organization FIPI in 2016. He has served on the boards of many subsidiaries of Indian Oil Corporation, Reliance Industries Ltd and the Oil Industry. He served as the Regional Coordinator for the oil industry in coordination with GOI and the various State Governments. Also, He served as a trustee on the boards of Calcutta and Paradip Port trusts during his tenure as Head of the Eastern Region of Indian oil. He has also served on deputation to Planning Commission, Govt of India, and Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA).

He believes that critical thinking and systems thinking was quickly the most useful skills in his career and personal life. He has a passion for teaching and is currently training young professionals on these skills.