V. Venkata Rao obtained a Ph.D. in 1981 , and an MS. In Operations Research in 1979, both from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA; an M. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering (specialization in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research) from I.I.T. Kanpur in 1974; and a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the Government College of Engineering (now J.N.T.U.) Kakinada in 1971.
He served on the faculty of Information Systems area of I.I.M. Ahmedabad from 1981 to 2014; worked as a systems analyst in the computer center there from 1974 to 1976. He spent the summer of 1997 at the Infosys Technologies, Bengaluru, as a Faculty Fellow. After superannuating from I.I.M. Ahmedabad in 2014, he worked as an adjunct professor at I.I.M. Udaipur till the end of 2023. He was a program director for the Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship (MGNF) program of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship , 2022-24, at IIM Udaipur; and as a coordinator for the Management Capacity Enhancement Programs for the top management of the Engineering Institutes, offered by IIM Udaipur under the TEQUIP Programme jointly sponsored by the World Bank and the Ministry of HRD, Government of India. In the last few years, he taught courses at I.I.M. Amritsar, I.I.M. Sambalpur, I.I.M. Nagpur, I.I.T. Tirupati, Goa Institute of Management, and Adani Institute for Infrastructure Management.
He teaches and researches in the fields of operations research, operations management, and computer based information systems. He participated in research and consulting projects for public and private sector organizations and government. Published papers in national and international journals in the areas of production planning for multi-stage production systems, optimization algorithms for graphs, and modelling of railway operations.
