R Gopalakrishnan studied physics at Kolkata University, engineering at IIT Kharagpur and attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. He has been a professional manager from 1967. He has served as Chairman of Unilever Arabia, as MD of Brooke Bond Lipton and Vice Chairman of Hindustan Lever, and as Director of Tata Sons and several Tata companies. He also serves as an independent director and Chairman of Castrol India, and independent director of Hemas Holdings PLC, Sri Lanka.

Gopal mentors a few start-ups. He is actively engaged in both instructional and inspirational speaking. He has also authored nine books.