The story begins in 1971 with a little boy who held his mother’s hand and left for Dubai from Chennai. He was only two years old then and the United Arab Emirates was formed only a few months ago.
The boy has transformed into a 45-year-old man now who is one of the most well-known businessmen of UAE. He is a perfect example of how a man does not have to depend on anyone if he is willing to put in hardwork. This man with Indian roots has grown as rapidly as Dubai has in the past four decades.
This is the extraordinary story of business tycoon Kannaiyan Shankar. His father was a lawyer in India but his profession was not contributing in financial stability of his family. They constantly lived on the edge and feared for the future. On advice of a few friends, his father decided to move to Dubai for a better life.
He began his practice in Dubai without a licence but soon got an opportunity to work under an Iranian businessman. He started receiving a stable income and the family could afford 2-3 meals everyday. His father worked with utmost dedication for his employer and later on got appointed as business manager in Mitsubishi. The new job brought further stability in the family’s income.
Amidst these financial challenges Shankar focused on his education and completed his secondary education from Indian High School in 1988. To support his family he started working at the age of 18 but realized the need of higher education after a few months. He asked his father for financial help and pooled his saving to pursue a diploma course in computer science. For the next three years he worked all day and studied from evening till late night.
It was utterly disappointing when even after his diploma he couldn’t find a suitable job. This led him towards thinking of setting his own business. In the year 1995, he set up a socks manufacturing company in India but against his hoped the company went into terrible losses just 18 months after its launch.
It was a big shock for Shankar as he lost every penny of his savings. But instead of drowning in disappointment, Shankar studied the mistakes he made and began looking for new business opportunities.
In 1997, he decided to venture into clothing and accessories market and set up a company by the name Silver Moti Packaging Service. This idea looked promising right from the start and became the foundation of Shankar’s success story. The companies business expanded with every passing minute and soon he was venturing into contracts with brands like Disney, Barbie, Levis etc.
You will be surprised to know that the leading hyper markets in Dubai are today run with the help of Shankar’s company and are earning a turnover of crores every year. Recently he set up a company in Bengaluru which promotes green initiatives in India. In 2010, he had also ventured into hotel business by setting up a vegetarian chain restaurant by the name Radhe Radhe.
Shankar believes in working towards achieving your goals and fighting against all odd with solid determination. He says that one can only succeed when he can look failures in the eye, learn from them and build a castle of success.
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