Arunendra Kumar is an industry veteran with 40+ years of experience on all matters pertaining to infrastructure and transportation industry. He has successfully managed the largest workforce in India - Indian Railways, and has recently superannuated as Chairman of Indian Railway Board, equivalent to Principal Secretary, Government of India in December 2014. He is currently the principal advisor, and was previously the Chairman of Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), where he was responsible for the construction of Western and Eastern dedicated freight corridors in compliance with all international trade policy obligations and norms. He was also the chief patron of 14 other public sector undertakings that had a turnover of over INR 20,000 crores (200 Billion) annually. These included PSUs relating to the development of rail infrastructure, port connectivity, bridge and road development, construction of factories, colonies, hospitals, schools, road-over bridges, generation of finance for rail infrastructure, manufacture and maintenance of freight cars and passenger cars and locomotives.
During his 40-year successful tenure with Indian Railways, Mr. Kumar architected many key initiatives from bottom-up: implementation of semi-bullet trains, introduction of 100% FDI, development of Eastern and Western heavy freight corridors, modernization of stations, etc. As the Chief Executive Officer of the Indian Railways, he was responsible for the formulation and execution of Indian Railway's long term & short term strategy with a view to create value for money for the customer and provide an impetus for the economic growth of the nation. Mr. Kumar has several innovations in the field of locomotive and coaching maintenance to his name. He has represented Indian Railways in the Indian Parliament, as well as, in technical meetings in USA, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, etc.
Having successfully managed 14 lakh employees, and overseen the operations of the third largest railways in the world, Mr. Kumar is an expert in management, budget, operations, planning, mechanical engineering, and interfacing with key departments of government. He has consulted many firms on improving their throughput, performance and focus, including both engineering and financial firms.