T.V. Rao is currently Chairman, T.V. Rao Learning Systems, (started at Ahmedabad and now in Bangalore), and a Former Professor at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. He has also worked as the L&T Professor of HRD at XLRI, Jamshedpur, between 1983 and 1985. Rao is the co-founder and first president of the National HRD Network, and the first honorary director of the Academy of HRD, India. He was also president of the Indian Society for Applied Behavioral Science (ISABS). He worked with David McClelland of Harvard University (the initiator of the competency movement) and had joint research projects with him in the seventies. Rao was also a visiting faculty at the Indian Business School, Hyderabad and was on the Boards of IIMA and GIM.

Rao has worked as a short-term consultant to the UNESCO, USAID consultant to Ministry of Health, Indonesia, National Entrepreneurial Development Association, Malaysia, and the Commonwealth Secretariat, London. Rao has designed and assisted in implementing performance appraisals and other HRD Systems for a number of organizations in India and a few other countries. His consulting experiences including designing and implementing performance management and other HR systems in a number of organizations like SAIL, NTPC, Indian Oil Corporation, HPCL, Bharat Petroleum, NALCO, SBI, Bank of Baroda, Neyveli Lignite, MRL, BEML, Reserve Bank of India, Larsen & Toubro, Voltas, Sundram Fasteners, EID Parry, TI Group, Crompton Greaves, Transpek Industries, BILT, NOCIL, IL&FS, Mahindra and Mahindra, Escorts, Tata Finance, Titan, Taj Group of Hotels, Tata Cummins, KPMG, ICI, Hindustan Levers, Pfizer, Chanrai Group (Nigeria), Indorama (Indonesia), Godfrey Phillips India, Amway, Nestle, Wockhardt, Wyeth, Fulford, Galfar, FAO, Rome, Commercial Bank (Sri Lanka), Hemas Group ( Sri Lanka), CHR (Oman), Alexandria Carbon Black, Egypt etc.

Rao along with Udai Pareek is credited with having established the first dedicated department of HRD at L&T in the mid-seventies, much before HRD was known. Rao has been working in the HRD field for the last 50 years and has over 60 books to his credit. Dr. Rao was awarded as HR Professional of the Year 2019 by the Asia Pacific Federations for HR Profession, Ravi Matthai Fellow by Association of Indian Management Schools and Life time achievement by INDAM, Business world and many other bodies.