From a salary of Dh2, 000 a month to owning a billion-dollar company, the rise of Yogesh Mehta, 61, CEO of Petrochem Middle East - the largest chemical distributor in the Middle East - has been phenomenal. Mehta, who came to UAE in 1990, runs this family-owned business along with his son Rohan, 32, and a team of dedicated professionals.
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Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/1.80961341
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #business #MiddleEast
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00:00Hi, my name is Yogesh Mehta, and I am also the CEO of Petrochem Middle East, which is
00:07the largest chemical distributor in the Middle East.
00:10I'm very, very proud about the fact that we are the largest in the businesses that we
00:16do.
00:17I came to Dubai in 1990, and it's almost 32 years that I am here now, and when I came
00:25I was pretty much down and out and done with life, though I was married, and I had a son
00:33almost a year old, and I thought my life had come to an end of my career, not my life,
00:44but more my career, and I felt that I needed another boost, and I needed another opportunity.
00:51And I thought I should try Dubai, at that time Dubai was a small fishing village almost,
00:58with no real impetus in the world market, and I said, okay, many people said that Dubai,
01:05you come to Dubai, it's a land of opportunity, and I came to try my fortune, and those were
01:10early days, we had two-lane highways, and Sheikh Zayedul was not Sheikh Zayedul, and
01:16everything was very, very small, and you go to a restaurant and people knew you, and it
01:21was very, very mom-and-pop type.
01:24And I started business in 1990 as a small partner, and as the business grew, I separated
01:33from my 10 partner, and formed my own company with a British partner, and that was in 1994,
01:41late 1994, I wanted to be a business magnate, I wanted to be, when you're young, you want
01:48to be very rich, you want to be very big, you want to be larger than life, I wanted
01:52to be all of that, and I set up my company Petrochem Middle East in late 1994, and today
01:59this company is 25 years old, and our last year's turnover was $1.5 billion, and we are
02:06the largest chemical distributing company here in the Middle East, and number 12 in
02:11the world, and as we started small, as Petrochem, we grew very big, because those were the days
02:17when you could get any agencies you wanted, and we wanted to create a state-of-the-art
02:25distribution terminal, we wanted to create barriers to entry, so we formed a team of
02:32professionals, the very best, the very best chemical engineers, we created barriers to
02:37entry in a manner that we took agencies that were very, very, you know, the best, the five-star
02:43agencies, and the main thing we did was we provided just-in-time chemicals to our consumers,
02:51so that was a department, the main thing is that even the UAE grew when we were growing,
02:56and at that time, Sheikh Mohammed's vision was huge, you know, they wanted, Dubai wanted
03:02to be in the forefront, Emirates Airlines came in, tourism was very important, hotels
03:08were very important, and Dubai came on the map of the world, and along with them, we
03:12also progressed, because we came on the map of the world, so as the businesses grew, and
03:17as time went by, there were a lot of challenges even, for example, the 2007 and 2008 collapse,
03:23the Lehman Brothers collapse, as it was known as, that was the worst time, suddenly, after
03:29Dubai going from 2001, we never did anything wrong, and suddenly the world stopped, and
03:37there was the collapse of the stock market, there was the collapse of the gold, bullion,
03:41currency, and we almost felt that the world was coming off, but we never gave up, we thought,
03:47okay, we should come out of this, and 2007 and 2008 was terrible, but we grew off from
03:55that very nicely, because we created some innovation, we did some wonderful work with
04:02our stock management, with the people, with the team, and we went down to the drawing
04:07board again and said, let's not do this, but let's do that, the more important thing we
04:11did at that point was, we did not change our business, but we changed the way we did
04:18our business, and hence strategy was very, very important. Then, in 2019 and 20, came
04:25the pandemic, and the pandemic was a severe blow to the world, lives were being lost,
04:31and the world was coming to a halt, and there were lockdowns, there were closures, there
04:36was, we didn't know what would happen the next week, and in that, luckily, that we are
04:43in the chemical business, and our business, we have products that are included in the
04:48chemical sanitizer, so in the sanitizer businesses, so in fact, our demand grew too much in the
04:56COVID times, because the sanitizer demand was very, very huge, and there was no table
05:02that didn't have a sanitizer, and we supply chemicals like isopropyl alcohol and ethyl
05:07alcohol to the world, so people make money, people lose money in war or in adverse times,
05:15and for us, the COVID was a suitable opportunity to grow the business. So, as the business
05:21went on, in 2018, my erstwhile partner, he came up to me and said, look, you know, your
05:30son is in the business, but my children are not, it's better that we slice and dice the
05:37company and part as friends, rather than something else happening or more challenges coming in
05:45the future, because his children didn't want to be part of the chemical business. So, in
05:502018, he left, and my son then acquired shares in the company, so today, my son and I own
05:58this company jointly, and Rohan, of course, is a very talented and highly educated, I
06:07call him a good guy, he's just a good guy, and a great salesman in the company. He's
06:12our only son, and hence, he's the family that we have. He took over that challenge very,
06:17very easily, having studied in Northeastern College in Boston, having worked in Texas
06:24for two years, he had enough experience in the chemical industry, he worked in a refinery.
06:29So, I said to him, son, enough of the good times, you need to come here and work, and
06:34he happily agreed, and now it's seven years that he's in the company, and he's an integral
06:41part of this company, and obviously, he will wear those boots when I retire. Yes, he will.
06:54you