Kumar holds a PGD in Personnel Management & Industrial Relations ( PM & IR) from XLRI Jamshedpur from where he graduated in 1989 winning the Institutes Gold Medal for topping in Personnel Management. He has over 22 years experience in Human Resources Management covering Factory Personnel, Corporate Industrial Relations, Compensation, Job Evaluation and Career Planning in specialist roles. Since 1996 he has been Head of the HR function across various Companies.

Kumar started his career with Hindustan Unilever India in 1989 and worked in the group Companies Lipton and Brooke Bond Lipton in roles as Factory Personnel Manager, Corporate Industrial Relations, Compensation & Benefits and Personnel Planning . He then moved to Burns Philp India, an Australian multinational as General Manager, Human Resources, Indian Sub continent with responsibility for food ingredients businesses in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.In 1998, he joined Citigroup India and had responsibility for HR for Subsidiaries & Affiliates the largest role being HR Head for eServe International. In July 2005 he joined the Temasek Holdings funded NBFC in India , Fullerton India Credit Company Ltd as Executive Vice President Human Capital. He is currently Vice President HR for Castrol India Limited since October 2010.

Kumar runs a website www.humanresources.co.in  and also moderates India's oldest HR email group called  World of HR  on yahoogroups