Dr. Ajay Kumar is the former Defence Secretary of India an advisor for electronics development projects. He is an
Indian Administrative Officer from the 1985 batch. Dr. Ajay Kumar is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and the University
of Minnesota.
Dr. Kumar currently holds the position of Distinguished Visiting Professor in Department of Management
Sciences and the Department of Economic Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
Dr. Kumar has served in the technology and policy domains, particularly in areas like electronics manufacturing,
mobile production, and defence production. Notably, he has played a leadership role in shaping and implementing
key decisions for the Government of India's Digital India initiative as Additional Secretary to the Government of
India.
His career also includes involvement in expanding defense exports and introducing modern warfare capabilities.
Dr. Kumar is the visionary behind the IDE program, which received the Prime Minister Award for Public Policy in
the Innovation Category in 2021. He has been associated in Project 751, a program focused on developing next-
generation submarines and fighters and laying the groundwork for a
thriving marine and aerospace industrial ecosystem in India.
Dr. Kumar has led many public sector enterprises across these domains. Major successes include revival of
electronics and mobile manufacturing industry in India (2012-17), development of defence industry ecosystem
including defence startup ecosystem through iDEX (2017-2022), major Digital India initiatives including Aadhaar,
UPI, Jeevan Pramaan (2014-2017) among many others.
Dr. Kumar was instrumental for opening of drone sector and space sector (2020-2021) and promoting
startups in these sectors. He has also been instrumental in boosting performance of Defence PSUs
during 2018-2022 and turnaround of KELTRON during 2000-2003.
He is an active writer for Indian national dailies and maintains a monthly column in Business Standard "Off the
Grid."