Malaysian Entrepreneur-Philanthropist Featured In Latest Issue Of Forbes Magazine

NEW YORK, Nov 11 (Bernama) -- It is not an everyday happening that a Malaysian entrepreneur gets prominent coverage in Forbes which has a certain ring about it in the global business world. The November issue of the magazine's Asian edition runs a feature on Datuk Vijay Eswaran, a Malaysian businessman who has been creating ripples in the global business world with what he calls his Gandhian ideas and projects.

Source from (Bernama): http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v6/newsbusiness.php?id=708596
Published: November 11, 2012

Source from (The Malaysian Insider): http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/malaysian-entrepreneur-philanthropist-featured-in-latest-issue-of-forbes-magazine/
Published: November 11, 2012

The Forbes story, captioned "Selling a better life" and written by Donald Frazier, has generated a lot of interest amongst Asians and, particularly, Malaysians in the USA after copies of the magazine recently hit the newsstands.

Eswaran's life history seems to have fascinated many people who have monitored his career path from the time he returned to Malaysia after his education in the United States.

In the Forbes article, the author says that Malaysia's Eswaran has learnt from mistakes and now builds a movement in the "rough-and-tumble business of direct sales".

The article - stretching to over 2,500 words - takes the reader on a journey through Eswaran's personal history from the time he finished his education to the present.

The article opens with a crowd of people waiting in Jakarta for Eswaran who has arrived there after his last visit in 2007.

"Wrapped up in the adulation, it's tempting for Eswaran to forget the last time his event was held here, in 2007."

An obscure lawsuit in the Philippines had mutated into an Interpol arrest warrant, clapping him and three senior executives in jail for three weeks.

Indonesian courts scoffed and set him free; a Manila court dismissed the charge soon afterward.

"But Eswaran remembers it as one of the consequences of building a business in which some people expect a get-rich-quick scheme and feel cheated when they don't get one," says the author.

The article is also peppered with quotes from persons who have benefited from Eswaran's business schemes and expressed their gratitude to him for their success.

The 52 year old Penang-born Eswaran, who has set up a business empire that stretches across many parts of the world, was recently in New York to receive the New Global Indian (NGI) award for business excellence and philanthropy from the global Indian diaspora that descended on New York for the Global India Business Meet (GIBM) 2012.

In an interview with Bernama in New York, Eswaran had said that he practices Gandhian principles even in today's business world, known for its dog-eat-dog attitude, where ethics tend to recede in the background and profits matter most.

Eswaran graduated with a socio-economic degree from the London School of Economics in 1984.

He is today the executive chairman of the QI group, founded in 1998, an e-commerce based conglomerate with businesses diversified into retail and direct sales, technology, lifestyle and leisure, luxury and collectibles, education, training and conference management, property development and logistics.

The QI Group has regional offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, besides having a presence in nearly 30 countries through a wide range of subsidiary companies.

Eswaran has authored several books, including the popular The Sphere of Silence which was discussed at the GIBM.

Describing The Sphere of Silence as a "modern-day tool for achieving success", Eswaran said that he has synthesized the tool from ancient wisdom, stemming from the Vedic concept of practicing silence.

He also discussed the situation in Malaysia. Indians in Malaysia, he said, had the advantage of being able to tilt the political scale in the country

"There is no alternative to the Malaysian Indian Congress. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is vocal about his concerns for Indians and has done the maximum towards bringing them into the mainstream," he said, adding that the voices of the minorities are heard in Malaysia by all the political parties concerned.

-- BERNAMA