Profile of L&T CEO K Venkataramanan

K Venkataramanan is the whole-time director and president (hydrocarbon), Larsen & Toubro, one of the most admired companies in India. This business caters to engineering, procurement, construction and project management in the sectors of oil and gas offshore installations, refineries and petrochemicals, chemical plant and systems, gas processing and fertiliser sectors.

He has spearheaded L&T’s foray in the world of E&C and strengthened every aspect of EPC value chain and transformed L&T to one of the respected names in the global EPC fraternity. L&T Hydrocarbon has also established its identity in select overseas geographies like West Asia, South East Asia and Africa.

He has played key leadership role in L&T’s power business initiative through EPC jobs in gas and coal based power plants in India and abroad. This power EPC business in recent years has established its own identity as “L&T Power Ltd”.

He is a chemical enginee from IIT Delhi with specialisation abroad in design and engineering and is a distinguished alumni awardee of IIT Delhi in 2005. He was the first Asian to become the chairman of the board of directors of the “Engineering & Construction Risk Institute, Inc.”, USA for a two-year term ending in May 2010. He is an “Honorary Fellow” of Institute of Chemical Engineers, UK and the second Indian to receive this recognition from the world’s most reputed body in chemical engineering space. He is a member of governing council of Petrotech Society.  He is also a fellow of Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers. He is presently the chairman of the Capital Goods Committee of FICCI.

Venkataramanan has been conferred with various prestigious accolades and recognitions at both national and international level. The “Davidson Frame Award” was conferred to him by IPMA, Switzerland for strengthening Project Management Profession in India and abroad for the year 2002. He is honoured with the title of IPMA Level ‘A’ assessor in December 2008. He is the second Indian to receive this title. He was conferred an honorary doctorate in project management by the University of Petroleum & Energy Studies (UPES) Dehradun in May 2011.The Association of Business Communicators of India (ABCI) – India’s largest such body of professional communicators – presented Venkataramanan the ‘Global Business Communicator Award’ in November 2011 for his charismatic ability to reach out to people, and transmit thought and idea.

Amongst his various national recognitions are  “V V Mariwala Visiting Professor in Chemical Engineering Endowment " for the year 2002-2003 conferred by UICT, “Chemtech – Business Leader of the Year”  award for Plant & Machinery in the year 2005, the “Lala Shriram Award for Leadership” in Chemical Industry in the year 2006 and the “CEPM-PMA Honorary Fellowship Award” for the year 2006.

Venkataramanan is widely travelled, an avid reader, has diverse interests, is an ardent sportsman and is devoted to the development of young engineers.