During his time at university, he launched his first Business, a chit fund in Kollam on reportedly borrowed money. Later, he started an engineering contract Business and worked for some of the major industrial houses in Kerala such as Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Limited, Hindustan Newsprint Limited, and Cochin Refineries. However, a labour strike forced him to close down his Business, after which he went to Saudi Arabia in 1978 where he started a small trading Business. Two years later, he moved into construction, and established Nasser Al Hajri Corporation with 150 employees, which has over the years grown to become the flagship company of his Business group, RP Group, which is known to employ over 70,000 employees across its businesses. The shopping mall in South Kerala, RP Mall at Kollam city is owned by Pillai.