Pillai was born in Singapore to K. S. Pillai, a journalist who ran a daily, Kerala Bandhu, known to be the only Malayalam language daily published outside India.[2] He spent eight years of his childhood in Kerala, India, where his family is from, as he could not return to Singapore due to the outbreak of World War II.[2] After the closure of the daily, his family finances dwindled and Pillai opted for a government-funded education.[2] He graduated from the University of Malaya with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1961 and was a member of the Socialist Club.[4][5]
Pillai started his career as a journalist with Reuters[4][6] but had to abandon the job to fulfil his commitment to the government to work as a teacher, a prerequisite for availing government funding for education in Singapore.[2] He subsequently joined Bangkok Bank[4] as an Economic Research Officer and worked as a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review.[2] He worked at the bank for five years before moving to Malaysian Industrial Development Finance Bhd as an economist, during which Singapore had become a separate country in 1965.[4] He stayed in Malaysia until 1969, when he returned to Singapore with his family to take up an appointment as the head of a government-owned textile factory.[2] He later worked at United Industrial Corporation and then the State Trading Corporation[2] for around 10 years in total.[5][7]
Pillai attends conferences and seminars and delivers keynote addresses.[1][6][8] He has authored two books, The History of Banking in Thailand[4][6] and The Political Economy of South Asian Diaspora: Patterns of Socio-Economic Influence.[9]
Public career
Pillai served the first chairman of NTUC FairPrice after its establishment in 1983, a position he held until 1993.[4] He remains as a Trustee of NTUC FairPrice.[10]
Pillai's diplomatic career started with his assignment with the Government Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Foreign Affairs in the 1980s.[4] In 1990, he was appointed as Singapore's Non-Resident Ambassador to Iran, a post he held until 2008.[4][11] He later served as Singapore's High Commissioner to Pakistan.[2][4] Pillai is a former Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[2][4][8][12][13]
Business career
Pillai launched KSP Group along with two of his friends, Sat Pal Khattar and Haider Sithawalla, and holds the post of a Director of the company.[2][10] The company has since been rebranded as KSP Investments Private Limited, and serves as the holding company for Pillai's business investments.[2] He is reported to have invested in a number of businesses and holds positions in many of them. He is the executive chairman of Savant Infocomm, an IT company,[4][5][10] Playware Studios Pte Ltd[14][15] and holds the chairmanship of companies such as Windmill International Private Limited[10][16] and Gateway Distriparks Limited and one of its subsidiaries, Snowman Logistics Limited.[2][5][10] He is the director of another Gateway Distriparks subsidiary, Gateway Rail Freight Limited[2] and JTC Consultancy Services (Holdings) Private Limited.[5] He is also the director of AEC Edu Group Private Limited[17] and holds directorship of two of its subsidiaries, AEC College and AEC Education Plc.[5][12]
Social career
Pillai is the chairman of the Management Board of the Institute of South Asian Studies,[4][8][10][12][18] a National University of Singapore-funded research institute.[19] He also holds the post of the deputy chairman of Ang Mo Kio-Thye Hua Kwan Hospital[4][6][8] a healthcare centre in Singapore for rehabilitative care.[20]
