Dr. Harikrishna completed his first degree (B.Sc.) in Plant Sciences from the University of London (Wye College), and his Ph.D. in Plant Developmental and Molecular Biology at the University of Leicester.

Prior to joining the Sime Darby Group in July 2003, Dr. Harikrishna was a post-doctoral Fellow of University of California, working on plant molecular biology R&D and a visiting scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, where he worked on developing new tools for oil palm molecular biology. He has held research and academic positions in industry and academic institutions in the UK, USA and Malaysia, and has 25 year’s post-graduate experience in biotechnology. In 2012 he was inducted into the Malaysian Academy of Science as a fellow.

In May 2009, Sime Darby announced that it has successfully sequenced, assembled and annotated the oil palm genome exclusively using second generation sequencing technology– making it the world’s first company to achieve this scientific break-through using this technology, an effort spearheaded Dr. Harikrishna. In 2016, Sime Darby announced the first commercial scale planting of its genome select oil palms derived from its genomic breakthrough of 2009, with an expected oil yield of over 10 tonnes of oil/ha. He has served as the Head of R&D at Sime Darby Plantation from 2015 to 2023 and is now in a new role as Special Advisor to R&D.