Significant developments occurred under his leadership, including the completion of the Shinkansen (Bullet Train/Mumbai Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail) project, the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, the establishment of Japanese vocational training centers in India (Japan India Institutes of Manufacturing, or "JIMs"), the integration of young Indian professionals into Japanese companies through Japan's Technical Intern Training Programme (TITP), and collaborations in various sectors such as healthcare, digital technologies, start-ups, agriculture, food processing, disaster risk reduction, space sciences, earth sciences, oceanography, and defense cooperation.

He was Additional Secretary in the National Security Council Secretariat in the Prime Minister's Office in New Delhi for several years.

He also served for many years as India's Consul General in China (Shanghai) and Australia (Sydney), handling trade and economic portfolios.

Usha Chinoy's grandfather, Vaidya Shastri Manishankar Govindji (Maṇicaṅkar Kōvintaji),[5] founded the Ayurveda firm Atank Nigrah Pharmacy[6] in Jamnagar in 1881.

[10] Chinoy is a direct descendant of Seth Nanji Jekaran Shah (later Seth Nanji Chinai of Mangrol), an early Jain trader from Mangrol in coastal Saurashtra in Western India who founded the Gujarati community in Kolkata and was also the first Gujarati trader in Shanghai, and lived there for twelve years in the opening decades of the 19th century.

Chinoy received his education at Rajkumar College, Rajkot (1965–74), where he played in the school's orchestra (sitar) and was a member of the rifle shooting team.

[16][17] He gave a sitar performance on 2 October 2013, playing Mahatma Gandhiji's favourite bhajans, Raghupati Raghav Rajaram and Vaishnava Jana To, to mark Gandhi Jayanti in Mexico City.