Success doesn’t come to you in a day, it’s a journey that defines your life. While many want the lavish lifestyle of billionaires that are sitting at the helm of their success but often forget the journey and the hardships that they had to conquer to reach the position that they are in today. The following feature talks about one such success story and how Vinay Maloo, the Chairman of Enso Group, became a business tycoon.
Born and brought up in Shri Dungargarh, Rajasthan, Vinay completed his early education in the small town itself before moving to Kolkata to join the high school from there and then graduated with a commerce degree from St. Xavier’s College. He then went to pursue Chartered Accountancy from ICAI but left it midway as he wanted to start a business.
The above-mentioned situation comes a lot in our lives, wherein there’s a clear conflict of interest between the heart and mind. We seem lost to decide what’s best for us, would it be viable to play safe or to take a risk to take a giant leap. This very choice makes a huge difference. As for Maloo, he could’ve easily pursued CA, but he chose to go where he found his calling i.e. to start his own business.
Vinay Maloo started his business career with scrap dealing, followed by the acquisition of a marble mine in Kankroli, Rajasthan. After some time, he decided to leave Kolkata and went to Delhi to help partner with his uncle Mahendra Nahata to run HFCL (Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited) which was a telecom equipment manufacturing company, the first one in the private sector at that time.
Both Maloo and Nahata had co-founded the company in 1987, HFCL was India’s first private telecom equipment manufacturing company. This indeed shows that Maloo was always ready to take risks if it promised a huge return. The telecom sector till the 90s was completely a public domain, thus setting up a private company at such a time was a bold move in all aspects. They set up manufacturing facilities in India for optical fiber cables, optical transport, power electronics, and broadband equipment for global supply, and provided turnkey solutions to the Government of India’s undertakings and private sector players across the world.
The risk finally paid off as India saw a great technological boom in the late 90s and early 2000s. The company brought in huge revenues making Vinay Maloo, one of the top 10 richest Indians at the age of 39. But, Maloo didn’t stop here he wanted to expand to different sectors and thus resigned from HCFL in 2006.
He soon started his company Enso Group, which initially started with a cluster of oil & gas E&P companies in Jordan, Nigeria, Georgia, Australia, and India. Today the company has become an established name among growing conglomerates around the world and continues to be in various businesses like energy, mining, healthcare, trading, and IoT. Under the visionary leadership of Vinay Maloo, the company’s vision is to keep improving the lives of people and making this world a better place to live.
Maloo’s journey gives a lot of insights to all upcoming entrepreneurs out there. Not only does it teach us the value of hard work, dedication, and perseverance, but also underlines the importance of risk-taking and cashing in on opportunities in our lives. Moreover, Vinay Maloo’s never-ending curiosity to learn and grow is perhaps the most important lesson to grasp.
