It’s been a long time since I had a chance to sit down and write something as I got caught in a mad rush. Just got busy. Guess you must be wondering why I am so busy. The urge to grow keeps pounding me and I have been on a wild chase looking for new opportunities. While routine work started to bore me a bit, I started to think of newer ideas and, I knew unless and until I stepped out of the routine schedule, I wouldn’t be able to divert my attention to reaching new horizons. With this in mind, I started to look around for people who could replace me. Dear friends, all of you should understand that running an organization to my level of expectation and precision is not easy. In today’s changing world the biggest challenge many of us face is talent and that too people with commitment. Today I run very sensitive businesses from production of frozen food to an educational institute. To run these businesses right we need the right people. When I was trying to draw myself out of the daily routine, I said to myself I need to find the right people who are hungry enough like me and who believe in making it big. Accordingly I found a replacement for me, an Argentinean American, someone I knew for many years who could take control of my frozen food operation in India. I made him the CEO. I found a replacement for me in Choice U.S too who has been made the CEO who would take care of the entire operations and business in the U.S.
Having done all this, I was thinking parallel of what to do next. I need to stay active and bring in new stories to my organization, my family and my community. People even ask me why I am not re-visiting my airline dream. My answer was ‘no’ because the situation didn’t seem very conducive due to high fuel costs and operational issues. One day I looked at the globe and started to think of where I had less presence or no presence at all. From the age of seventeen I have been travelling to the Far East mainly Japan and I have transited Singapore during various trips. My mind started drawing myself towards Asia where China is the leader representing the world’s second largest economy. Funny enough I have never visited China even though we have done few business deals, mostly importing Chinese goods.
The desire to grow big has always been my driving force and towards the fourth quarter of 2012, I made a decision that Choice must have a presence in Asia. By presence, I mean, a daily presence by starting an organization. I also said to myself, having stepped out of the daily routine of having to run the frozen food division and Choice U.S., I dreamt of making Choice Group a billion dollar company by 2018 a big dream! I knew a dream alone was not enough. I would have to work hard towards it, find new markets, new products and new customers. So the Asia dream started to interest me more and more.
I am writing this story from Singapore, the hub of Asia, a vibrant small little economy which provides tremendous opportunities from talented workers to financial centers and so on. I decided to open an office in Singapore, with a dream of developing the Asia region and I decided to take this task upon myself of heading Choice Asia.
Even though I have been to Singapore many times I felt like a tourist or visitor and had no other feeling. But as my flight touched down at Singapore airport today and as I put my foot out I knew I was here for a reason. To do something very specific, ‘Build Choice Asia’. My team had gone well in advance to locate the office space, the first employee and a little rented apartment for me to live in. I visited the small little office and was very impressed with the location. I met the first employee, a Malaysian Indian in whom I found a lot of energy as well. I felt like everything was falling in place.
My employee handed me a sim card and said This is your Singapore sim card. I loaded my phone and was wondering whom I should call first. I called my oldest daughter, who lives in New York; who is on her way to becoming a mother, making way for the 4th generation to join the team. I called her up and said I have just landed in Singapore and this is my contact no. Dad is all set for a new beginning.” I am here with a pencil and white paper, not knowing what to write on it. I told her my dream is to convert this single piece of paper into part of a book of history that I would leave behind in making Choice Asia the largest dream I have accomplished so far.
Friends, hopefully I will have all your support and prayers in making this dream a reality.