MK Padmanabhan

Myoor K Padmanabhan (Paddu) is a Technocrat with more than 35 years of experience in domains that span Enterprise creation and Management, Education and Applied Research, Governance and Policy implementation.

Presently, from 2016, he is the Director of Virginia Tech India Center for Research and Education, a Not for Profit entity duly Registered under Indian Companies Act.

During the period 2010-2016, he was involved in a number of initiatives that can broadly be classified as Education Management. In this period, he served a 3 year term as the Vice Chancellor (Pro Voce) of a large multi disciplinary Education and Research University. The University has Departments in Engineering, Medical Sciences, Arts & Science and Management.

During 2000-2010, Paddu founded Plexion Technologies, funded by JP Morgan ,a Technology company dealing with Design and Manufacture of Aerospace systems. It has later been acquired by a large Global conglomerate in 2008 and he worked as its CEO for a further period of two years.

Prior to this, Paddu spent nearly 20 years with Indian Space Research Organisation as Scientist/Engineer. During this period he was deputed to NASA,USA for a period of 5 years to work as the Project Manager of an Indo US Spacelab 3 Program on board the Space Shuttle, Challenger.

Paddu has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Paddu’s other interests and participation includes Community Development and has been part of a number of Rural upliftment Programs. Well connected with NGO’s, Rotary and Lions community in India, South East Asia and Japan, he enjoys working hands-on with local communities on projects relating to Poverty alleviation ,Local Societal issues etc. He is also Founding member of a Skill Training Initiative of Govt of India.