Graduated from Kerala University and post-graduated in Business Management from College of Communications and Management, New Delhi. He did his Hotel Management from JP Hotels, New Delhi and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) certification from, Chicago, USA.

After 9 years of tenure in Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, he branched off to Hotel Industry, then to Multi-national Companies based out of Germany, UK, Moscow, USA, Middle East and South Africa as their Managing Director/Director/Vice President and heading their Profit Centers in India.

Presently, he is the Operations Director of Land India Projects & Infrastructure (P) Limited, an Infrastructure Development Company, presently engaged in setting up Integrated Mega Townships in Panvel along the Mumbai-Pune Express Highway and Vijayapura, Bangalore. The project includes Residential Zone, Commercial Zone, Entertainment Zone, Educational Zone, Social Zone and many more other facilities.
Former Managing Director, Daroga Group (New Orleans) USA, an organization which is into International Trading and sourcing - responsible for their profit centre in North India. Daroga Group has 25 odd Affiliate Offices all over the World. Daroga Group has recently embarked upon the Renewable Energy Sectors in the World in a big way.
Director and Trustee, India International Knowledge Foundation (IIKF), an NGO which identifies Outstanding Indians from different walks of life and brings out their achievements in the form of bio-sketches, in volumes, for inspiring the younger generation.
Vice President, Global Confederation of Pravasi Malayalees (GCPM), a non-profitable Organization dedicated for the welfare and betterment of Pravasi Malayalees settled abroad. President of GCPM is also the President of FOMA (Federation of Malayalee Associations of Americas) having 700,000 Malayalee members in USA and Canada.

A chemical engineer by profession, Nagesh Kukunoor gave up his lucrative career as an environmental consultant in Atlanta and using his personal savings wrote, produced, acted and directed his immensely successful debut film, Hyderabad Blues, which went on to become the largest grossing low budget Indian film in English. Some of its box office records in India were astounding given the fact that the film was not what was traditionally defined as “commercial” in Indian filmdom. It ran to full houses for 31 weeks in Mumbai, 28 weeks in Hyderabad and 28 weeks in Bangalore. In addition, the film has been to several international festivals winning audience awards at the Peachtree International Film Festival in Atlanta and the Rhode Island Film Festival. With its commercial box-office success in India, Nagesh has created a new genre in Indian cinema - the indie film that breaks the traditional barrier of both commercial and art cinema.

Rockford, a coming of age story of any boarding school going kid, his second film also written and directed by him, follows the same style of film making- of telling empathetic stories that are real and everyday, as well as entertaining. Besides it’s tour of several film festivals, beginning with the Austin Film Festival in 1999, the film was also commercially successful, doing over 16 weeks of business in India.

Bollywood Calling, the filmmaker’s third film, stars Om Puri and Naveen Nischol in the lead. This film also had a very successful commercial run in India and other countries with Indian Diaspora.

His next film 3 Deewarein is another ‘genre bender’ on the Indian movie front combining elements of drama and mystery and boasting of an impressive star cast of Naseeruddin Shah and two of India’s biggest Hindi stars Jackie Shroff and Juhi Chawla. The film has been acclaimed critically in India and abroad. It also won the writer-director, Nagesh, a premier Indian award, Film Fare award, in the best original story category.

Hyderabad Blues-2: Rearranged Marriage, the fifth film from the director, is a sequel to Hyderabad Blues, a film that started it all. Picking up six years from where it left off, HB2 also casts Nagesh in its lead.

Iqbal, featuring Naseeruddin Shah, Girish Karnad and Shreyas Talpade, is an inspiring story of a deaf mute boy from a small town in rural India who dreams of making it to the Indian cricket team. Released in 2005, the film was a huge box office success and has been included as mandatory reading in many middle school text books. This film won many awards for the director and acting awards for the cast.

Loosely based on a true incident, Nagesh’s next film ‘Dor’, starring Shreyas Talpade, Ayesha Takia, is a story of two women of different worlds coming together. This film received rave reviews, was a run away success at box office and screened at many international festivals.

His Bombay to Bangkok, again starring Shreyas Talpade and Lena Christensen, is a whacky romantic comedy released in early 2008.

In 2009, shifting gears yet again, Nagesh tackled the action thriller genre about a man with the ability to see the past in 8 X 10 Tasveer starring Akshay Kumar.

Nagesh currently has two films ready for release. Aashayein is an inspiring tale of a man with only ninety days left to live, starring John Abraham and Yeh Hausla, a large than life tale about women in a small village who learn how to use the camera to take on the system.