[3][4] Venkitaramanan was born on 28 January 1931 in the town of Nagercoil in Padmanathapuram division of the princely-state of Travancore, into a Tamil Iyer family.

[10] In the late 1960s, he served as the private secretary to Indian politician and food minister, Chidambaram Subramaniam, while ushering in India's green revolution.

[13][11] At the time of his appointment as RBI Governor, India was in the midst of a balance of payments crisis, with fast-depleting foreign exchange reserves.

[11] During this time, he partnered with the then finance minister, Manmohan Singh, in implementing some of the reforms and also engaged with international multilateral agencies and other central banks towards raising foreign exchange for the country.

[14] After retirement, Venkitaramanan served as the Chairman of Ashok Leyland Investment Services Ltd., New Tirupur Area Development Corporation Ltd. and Ashok Leyland Finance Ltd.[8] He also served in the boards of Reliance Industries Limited, SPIC, Piramal Healthcare Ltd, Tamil Nadu Water Investment Co. Ltd and Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd.[8] Venkitaramanan was married and had two daughters.