Dr.G.U.K. Rao has three and half decades of experience in the development and promotion of MSMEs in the country. He is presently the Director I/c of School of Enterprise Development of ni-msme. His long and chequered career includes a spell with Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad and another with Tata Economic Consultancy Services (TECS), New Delhi in the research area and a short stint as Manager of a private company. He holds a Doctoral Degree in Industrial Economics from S.V. University, apart from which he also attended a Programme on Training and Counselling for Enterprises at Cranfield School of Management, U.K.

Dr. Rao has a wide range of expertise spanning across study of regional planning, promotion of agro and food processing industries, development of micro and small enterprises, quantitative analysis, feasibility studies, project formulation, and cluster development studies. He has led and participated in a number of research studies and projects especially impact studies, project evaluation and industrial potential surveys, coordinated scores of long-term and short-term training programmes and is active in other domains too, as Registrar (1999-2008), guiding research scholars, honorary visiting faculty at several prestigious institutions, published over 30 research papers in reputed Indian journals on a variety of economics related topics, attended and contributed papers at seminars and workshops in both national and international, co-authored several published and unpublished works and has a wide range of secular interests. He has been involved in the "Preparation of Vision Document for Empowerment of Women through Enterprise Development" and conducted a research study on "Design of Project Profiles for SMEs" in Mauritius. Coordinated with the project "SME policy in India" sponsored by UNESCO. Conducted study on "Impact of WTO on Glass and Ceramic Industry in India" as UNIDO National Expert, 2002-03 on individual capacity