He is flying to space next year and has a “return ticket”. His group employs 11,000 people in 22 African countries and has investments cutting across banking, real estate, technology and manufacturing space.
But Ashish Thakkar (34), Founder of Mara Group, Mara Foundation and Chairman of UN’s Global Entrepreneurs Council, does not like to divulge the top line of the family-owned group, as it is not consolidated.
‘Do good and do well’ – in that order-- is the business philosophy of Thakkar, who began his entrepreneurial journey at 15. In an interview with
Some people think they will do well and then do good. And they never come round to doing it. But, if you do good, you will genuinely do well. You choose the right team, the right motivation. The new generation is not just about pay cheques.
Many studies prove that the newer generation gets more job satisfaction from the extent of difference they make to the community. Your clients and investors also prefer that you have the right values.
Governments also get comfort, as it is not just the public sector’s job to do good and make a difference. The private sector has an equal responsibility. At the same time, doing well is important, as you need to create shareholder value.
How does the ‘doing good’ philosophy run across your businesses?
We have banks in seven countries in Africa – only 12 per cent of Africa has access to financial services. Right now, small and medium enterprise (SME) lending is not happening.
Banks take deposits and put in money in government treasuries; they don’t lend to business. So, we will be the bank for business. We are going to create mobile banking – that will be big in Africa. Think about mobile money – 42 per cent of Kenya’s GDP works through mobile money.
With regulators catching up, entrepreneurship needs to innovate.
What are the areas where India and Africa can learn from each other?
India and Africa have similar and different challenges. India can learn from Kenya’s example of mobile money.
I can see a role for us in creating an entire ecosystem for Indian entrepreneurs – be it social media related, or providing mentorship to entrepreneurs. Government to government and corporate to corporate discussions are happening.
But, Mara Mentor is a platform where entrepreneurs can ask questions with zero fees, zero revenue, zero advertisement. An area where there is a huge gap is the SME to SME talk.
The only agenda it has is to connect entrepreneurs in Africa with those in India. Today, almost 700,000 entrepreneurs across Africa are on this platform.
We have launched it in the Arab world, and will be launching it in India soon. As the chair of UN Global Entrepreneurship Council, our aim is to devise how to use entrepreneurs to make a difference to people’s lives.
What will be Mara Group’s focus in India?
The group, which has 150 people in India, plans to focus on technology. Our focus is on young entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs.
E-commerce is creating a marketplace, and creating last-mile logistics is key. My vision is to enable a person sitting in a village in Africa sell or buy from an online marketplace. Africa is huge and challenges are big. We have worked on the technology vertical in the past two and half years and we go to market next year – with the entire ecosystem – from social media and marketplace to last mile, to devices business.
The place will be Africa, but parts of it will be launched here.
What is your group’s top line?
We don’t divulge that as we are not consolidated. There are various verticals with different sizes – the listed banking business (a joint venture) has a $2.7-billion balance-sheet. Real estate will be going public in Mauritius and Johannesburg. As an entrepreneur, I don’t want only money to be the driving factor. It should be the value.
Do you think you would have made money faster had you cut corners?
May be, in the short term. But, Mara Group would not have been what it is today.
Were there times when you had to make hard choices?
Initially, yes. Now people don’t have the courage to approach Mara with anything ‘otherwise’. People talk about corruption and bureaucracy. But, there will only be takers if there are givers! It’s a two-way street, and the private sector is equally responsible. While it’s easy to blame the public sector, the private sector is fuelling the system.