Ugandan raised entrepreneur-turned-billionaire Ashish J. Thakkar yesterday gave out words of encouragement to budding Ugandan young entrepreneurs at the sidelines of an oil and gas conference in Kampala.
Thakkar, who was born in the UK but raised in Kampala, has built a multi billion Business Empire that has earned him global recognition at a young age of 35.
The 4th generation Ugandan of Indian decent dropped out of school in the 1990s aged 15, to start his own company that has since metamorphosis into Mara Group with wings across the continent, in the Middle East and Europe.
After announcing this week together with his partner Bob Diamond (former Barclays Chief Executive ) that they are bidding for controlling stake in the South African based Barclays Africa, there was no better time for Mr Thakkar to instill some words of inspiration in Ugandan rising entrepreneurs.
While speaking at the sidelines of the Second Oil and Gas Convention on Thursday, the young tycoon said young starters-up ought to start small and think outside of the local and regional economies.
He told press, “As an entrepreneur, it is always important to dream big. Don’t get caught in what is happening locally and get stuck in that,” and added, “But it’s equally important to start small, with that big ambition. When you do this and stay on your path, you will surely succeed.”
Thakkar says young entrepreneurs ought to dream big and start small
He also urged them to remain focused on their dreams and to avoid unnecessary competition.
“As an entrepreneur, it’s so easy to get into a rat race, competing with others and keeping theirs as your benchmarks.”
“If you are in a rat race, even if you win you are still a rat. You have to stay out of that and focus on the big picture.”
Mr. Thakkar through his Mara Group has reached out to many youth entrepreneurs in Africa but says more has to be done to support them.
“By no means have we impacted enough,” he remarked. “We are helping up to 800,000 entrepreneurs, but when you think of our continent and the fact that we’ve got over a billion people, 80% of which are people below 35 years, you realize that we still have a huge role to play.”
Thakkar, whose parents were expelled from the country by highhanded President Amin before he came back in 1990s, says he draws his inspiration from Uganda and that most of his mentors are here.
Although he moved his base to Dubai in the UAE, the Mara Group still has a large investment portfolio in Uganda.
Some of its ventures include a Housing estate, a packaging company in Mukono, the enormous Kingdom Kampala, a real estate development he is working on in partnership with the Ruparelia Group; a BPO call center employing over 600 youths — the largest in the country – and an agricultural project in eastern Uganda sitting on 25000 acres of land.
Thakkar’s Mara Group in 2013 joined with Atlas Mara Limited owned by Bob Diamond to formulate the Atlas Mara consortium which last week announced plans to acquire Barclays Bank’s African assets.
While speaking to reporters at the Kampala Sheraton yesterday, Thakkar declined to delve into details of this deal saying that there are a number of public companies involved.
“What I can say is that if we are successful, we are looking at combining Barclays and AtlasMara Ltd,” he noted.