Businessman Sudhir Ruparelia has revealed why he chose his son Rajiv Ruparelia as the heir apparent to the Ruparelia Group empire.
Rajiv who has just turned 30 years old is probably the youngest CEO of a business empire that is now in excess of USD 1 billion (UGX3.7 trillion).
During an interview with CEO EA Magazine on Friday, Dr Sudhir disclosed that he chose Rajiv to manage his businesses because he is very intelligent and hungry for success.
“One of the biggest problems in a family business is succession. In succession, the first obvious choice is your family members. What we tried to do is mould him into business, work with him and guide him at an early age. The important thing is that Rajiv is intelligent, he has got his own hunger for success, and by 27 years, we felt it was the right time for him to join the business,” Uganda’s largest property mogul told CEO EA Magazine.
Adding, “He is very hard working and dedicates time to the business. Now he has also taken on motor rallying and you can see his hard work there too. He has won almost all the races he has participated in, in just under 6 months of joining the game. As long as he balances the business with rallying and the businesses do not suffer, then we do not have any issue. Otherwise things are going according to our goals and plans and we are moving forward.”
With three years at the helm of the empire, Dr Sudhir also noted that so far he is happy with Rajiv’s performance.
“I think everything has worked out very well for him. Three years down the road, we have successfully put up a lot of investments in the country. Rajiv has successfully overseen the construction of Kingdom Mall, The Cube, Kitante Apartments, Hardware Plaza, Market Plaza, Electrical Plaza and Kampala Boulevard. We have started putting up 269 apartments hotel at Kabira Country Club; it has just started hopefully in 2 and a half years, it will be completed. Rajiv has managed all these. There are more than 10 other buildings in the pipeline and the projects are ready to take off also supervised by him.”
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