Xerxes Rao is the Head - Urban Planning at Urban Management Centre. Xerxes brings with him 16 years of experience working on projects and policies for the urban development sector. His experience spans the area of urban planning, urban governance, community participation, urban development and infrastructure, preparation of policy on urban development, livelihoods and capacity building. During the span of his career, he has worked with multilateral and bilateral development institutions, central and state governments, para-statal agencies and urban local bodies. Xerxes formerly headed the Urban Planning vertical at SYSTRA India. 
At UMC, Xerxes provides technical expertise for implementing the convergence program of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM) and Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) with teams in MoHUA, Odisha and Telangana. 
He has been a visiting faculty and a guest lecturer at State Institute of Urban Development - Karnataka, Xavier’s University Bhubaneshwar, National Institute of Technology Bhopal and the, Institute of Environmental Design at Vallabh Vidyanagar. Xerxes has completed his architecture from Vallabh Vidyanagar following which he attained his master’s degree from University of Stuttgart, Germany. He has also done his diploma in project management from IIMA.