One of Scotland's best known entrepreneurs, Charan Gill was the invited guest speaker for the Strathclyde Business Forum's latest event on March 5, sharing his entrepreneurial experience with Strathclyde Business School students.
The Forum is run by students for students, and the postgraduate business students involved were delighted to host Charan Gill who spoke on 'Managing business through Various Growth Stages'.
Mr Gill built up the Ashoka chain of Indian restaurants and eventually sold the business, a chain of 17 restaurants, which made him a millionaire overnight. He has now opened another restaurant in Glasgow – Slumdog – and a karaoke venue.
He told the students he left school at 16 and joined Yarrow's Shipyard on the Clyde but an encounter in 1974 with an old friend who ran Ashoka Indian restaurant in Glasgow's Argyle Street changed the course of his life. He ended up working by day at the shipyard and at Ashoka restaurants by evening. Six years later, he was managing the restaurant and working there full-time.
He overcame difficulties in getting a loan to buy a share in the restaurant in 1983 and worked day and night to make it successful. "Your thoughts become your belief," he told the audience. "If you think positively, you will work positively."
In a question and answer session following his talk, Mr Gill talked about choosing business partners, and commented that, in business," the more you add rules the more you give other a chance to break them".
The event was attended by students on the MBM, MIM and MBA programmes.