Ashutosh P Bhupatkar started his career in the Textile industry in Mumbai in 1973 after a Master’s in Management from JB Institute of Management Studies.
He then worked with a Spring manufacturing company in Pune from 1978 to 1980 and helped the unit turn around. He then worked on the project of setting up a new plant for a machine-tool maker in rural area of Pune district.

In 1982 he shifted to academics joining the Institute of Management Development and Research, Pune as a lecturer and became its Director in 1989. He holds a Ph D in Management from University of Pune.

After retiring in 2005, he started work on setting up a business school in Gurgaon in a tie up with Nottingham Trent University, UK and Babson College, US. Pearl School of Business became operational in 2007.

He is adjunct faculty with AIT School of Management, Thailand. He has taught courses at WIPRO, ITM University, Gurgaon and University of West Indies, Trinidad. He is on the faculty of FIRE course at IIM Lucknow since 2011. He has conducted training programmes at Tata Management Training Centre, and National Insurance Academy among other corporate organizations.

His work took him to Sri Lanka, Oman, Tanzania and Nigeria. His consulting has been in Manufacturing, Telecom and IT sectors as well as in Healthcare and Social sectors.

He serves as a trustee in three social sector organisations and is an independent director on the board of three companies in India. He was honoured by the Learning & OD Roundtable Asia with the Learning Luminary Award 2016.