In May last year, the company said its RP Global real estate arm is building two new projects in Downtown Dubai for a combined cost of a cool $1.5bn. During 2015, the mother company — RP Group — won large industrial construction contracts in the Gulf in the oil and gas sector worth over $2bn.

On the hospitality side, Pillai owns six hotels — four in India and two in Dubai, with the seventh hotel — a new Crowne Plaza in Dubai Marina — set to open soon. This includes the Leela Raviz Kovalam, the most awarded five-star beachfront luxury hotel in Kerala.

His wealth has been built on the back of the Saudi Arabia-based RP Group, which has interests in industrial construction, real estate, travel and tourism, healthcare, retail and education. The most prominent part of the firm is its oil and gas construction business making it the largest industrial contractor in the Middle East. Not content with the firm’s role in Saudi Arabia, Pillai is also taking RP Group’s industrial expertise further afield, winning work in Kuwait, Qatar and Abu Dhabi as well as in locations as far flung as Australia.

With nearly 100,000 employees today, his company is a multi-billion-dollar operation. Not bad for the boy from Kerala who at the age of 14 started running his first business just so he could pay for school books.

“To me it’s just been one step at a time, it’s never been about the money, just trying to work hard and do things the right way,” he told us recently.

Pillai has an MBA from Cochin University and an honorary doctorate from Excelsior State University in the United States. Pillai was bestowed with the coveted Padma Shri Award as well as the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the Government of India for his commendable services to Non-Resident Indians and exemplary track record in entrepreneurship.