3 Success Lessons To Learn From Kenya’s Multi- Bilionaire Business Mogul Vimal Shah

Vimal Shah is arguably the richest Kenyan of our times. The businessman who attended Jamhuri High School and United States International University comes across as a simple man, despite the high voltage money he is estimated to have.

Vimal is the CEO of Bidco Oil Refineries—a multi-billion enterprise known for consumer goods like: Elianto, Golden Fry, Kimbo, Gental detergent, Gold Band margarine, Yellow Star bar soap among countless other commodities.

He has also been feted by Forbes; the American magazine that tracks down the fortunes of the world’s richest and ranks them.

Here are some lessons worth borrowing from Vimal Shah:

1. Do not dwell too much on your successes; be modest

A report by the New World Wealth pegged his fortune at around Ksh 144 billion overtaking steel merchant and Comraft owner Manu Chandaria. Moreover, calculations doing rounds estimated that Bidco Oil Refineries made a whopping Ksh 80,000 a minute!

And when the news hit headlines across Kenya, Vimal’s reaction was to refute the claims that he was the country’s richest man and instead went about his serial entrepreneurial ventures like nothing happened.

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2. Rise from failure, success lies ahead

Unknown to many people, after graduating from USIU-Nairobi, Vimal worked for 27 years selling insurance policies for the American Life Assurance Company (Now CFC Life).

According to Nairobi News, it is the failure to meet targets as an insurance agent that made him head back to his father’s shop which he managed to build from scratch. And from that small shop his father set up in Thika 1970, the foundation of what Bidco Oil Refineries is today was laid.

3. No Challenge is too big to beat

The idea of competing against the then mighty East African Industries (now Unilever) was laughable in the 1970s and 1980s yet Vimal and his father dared to challenge the big multinational.

Moreover, financiers were unyielding with their lending. However, the Industrial Development Bank, Biashara Bank, family and friends of Vimal came to offer assistance. Vimal personally used trucks to market the products to shops and supermarkets.

Today the firm’s oil refinery in Thika produces 1,000 tonnes of cooking oil on daily basis. His achievements Bhimji Depar, Shah’s father, started the Thika-based firm in 1970 as a small clothing manufacturing unit.

In 2008, Vimal Shah was bestowed with the prize of the CEO of the Year. In 2012 he was voted the Forbes Entrepreneur of the year.

He also chairs the Kenya Private Sector Alliance and the Trade and Investment Committee – East African Business Council.

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[Source: Nairobi News]