Mr. Anubhav Kumar is a senior aerospace and aviation strategy professional who currently serves as Executive Director and Head of Strategy & Government Policy for Boeing India and South East Asia. With around two decades of professional experience, he has built a career at the intersection of corporate strategy, government engagement, aerospace manufacturing, aviation policy and business development. His current role places him at a critical point in Boeing’s engagement with India and the wider South Asian market, particularly as the region enters a period of unprecedented commercial-aviation growth and seeks to develop a deeper indigenous aerospace ecosystem. His professional profile describes him as an execution-led strategy leader with a global outlook.
Mr. Kumar’s association with Boeing spans several years and has evolved from strategy and business-development responsibilities in India to a broader regional mandate covering strategy and government policy. Earlier industry references identified him as Director, Strategy & Business Development at Boeing India, while by 2022 he was serving as Head of Strategy, Boeing India. More recent aviation-industry platforms identify him as Executive Director, Head of Strategy & Government Policy, Boeing India & South East Asia, reflecting the increasing strategic importance of his portfolio.
A defining area of Mr. Kumar’s professional focus is India’s emergence as a major global aviation market. He has been closely involved in articulating Boeing’s long-term market outlook for India and South Asia, including the expectation that the region will require more than 2,800 new commercial aircraft over the next two decades, alongside substantial requirements for pilots, technicians and cabin crew. He has emphasised that the opportunity extends well beyond aircraft deliveries to encompass MRO, aerospace manufacturing, skills, supply chains, technology and the creation of globally competitive Indian aviation capabilities.
His recent public interventions demonstrate a particularly strong passion for moving India’s aerospace industry higher up the global value chain. At the ETInfra Air Summit 2026, Mr. Kumar argued that India needs to progress from predominantly “build-to-print” aerospace manufacturing towards build-to-specification and design ownership. He highlighted the importance of stronger R&D investment, testing infrastructure, certification capabilities and deeper academia-industry collaboration if India is to capture a larger share of the value created by global aerospace manufacturing.
Technology, innovation and future mobility are also prominent themes in his work. His recent engagement with Boeing’s innovation programmes has included supporting the BUILD programme, which identifies and mentors early-stage startups working in deep technology, defence and sustainability. He has also actively engaged with Boeing subsidiary Wisk and the future of autonomous flight, reflecting his interest in how emerging technologies could reshape the aviation ecosystem.
Mr. Kumar has additionally been an active participant in discussions around MRO and aviation-skills development. He has stressed that India’s rapidly expanding fleet will require a stronger domestic maintenance ecosystem and a much larger pool of technically skilled professionals. His work with Boeing’s local partnerships and capability-building initiatives reflects a broader philosophy that sustainable aviation growth requires investment not only in aircraft and infrastructure, but also in people, technology and indigenous industrial capabilities.
His professional journey also includes an engagement with sustainability and the future of aviation. Earlier in his Boeing career, he contributed to industry initiatives examining the deployment of sustainable aviation fuels in India, reflecting the importance he places on aligning aviation growth with the sector’s long-term environmental transition.
Through his leadership at Boeing, Mr. Anubhav Kumar has emerged as an important voice in India’s aerospace transformation, combining corporate strategy with policy engagement and ecosystem development. His larger mission is closely aligned with positioning India not merely as one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets, but as a globally significant centre for aerospace manufacturing, engineering, MRO, innovation and skilled talent. His work therefore sits at the intersection of commercial growth and national capability-building, helping shape the partnerships, policies and industrial capabilities that will influence the next phase of Indian aviation.
