Prior to Tata Motors, Ravi was director of consumer electronics and on the board of Philips India. He has also worked in senior positions at LML Ltd, Titan Watches, Kinetic Engineering, Hawkins and Hindustan Aluminium. During his tenure at LML, the company turned around from a loss-making venture to a profit-making one. At Titan Watches, the company established sales, marketing and service under his leadership.

Currently Ravi is on the board of Kone Ltd, Helsinki, one of the top elevator companies in the world, and Hawkins Cookers Ltd, a well-known consumer durable company. He has served as the director of several companies including Vedanta, Voltas, Tata Industries and many more. He was on the advisory board of Accenture India and is currently with EQUiTOR Value Advisory and Umeandus, an engineering consultancy.

Ravi is deeply interested in the education and health sectors. He was the chairman of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Rohtak, and the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Allahabad. He was on the board of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, Centre of Extractive Industry at the Earth Institute University of Columbia and CGIO Business School, National University of Singapore. He was on the advisory board of business schools at IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur, and the China Europe International Business School, Shanghai (CEIBS) where he is presently a visiting leader. He has also been on the board of Enactus, a non-profit US organization facilitating social entrepreneurship.

Ravi was also associated with Smile Train, a US-based non-profit supporting correction of cleft palate and was on the board of a New York based non-profit company, which supported surgeries for blindness, burns and club foot across the world. He is the chairman of the advisory board of Akhand Jyoti Hospital, one of the largest eye organizations in India. He is also on the advisory board of the Vision Foundation of India.

In the recent past, Ravi has been associated with two start-ups working in the area of cancer detection and cure. He is on the advisory board of MedTherapy (engaged in gene therapy) based out of Boston and is chairman of the board of advisors for India Operations. He is also the chairman of the board of Karkinos, an Indian cancer start-up that has partnered with Mayo Clinic, USA, and is doing pioneering work in detection, diagnosis, delivery and discovery.

Ravi has been actively involved in corporate bodies. He was the chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, Advertising Standards Council of India, Society of Automobile Association of India and was an executive member of CII.

Ravi studied at Mayo College Ajmer, did his BTech (Hons) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and M.Sc. in Management Techniques in Industry from Aston University, UK. He has received distinguished alumnus awards from these institutions and was also conferred a DSc (Hon) by Aston. He has been an industrial professor at the University of Warwick, UK, and a distinguished professor at IIT Kharagpur.