NOTHING FAILS EVER! - ATUL RUIA

Our guest is Mr Atul Ruia, joint managing director of The Phoenix Mills Limited. He built High Street Phoenix, one of Mumbai's first malls, on the site of family's old textile factory. It attracts 12 million shoppers a year and has expanded to include Palladium, a mall of luxury brands; a cinema multiplex and a Shangri-La Hotel. He is launching a chain of megamalls branded Market City and has also partnered to make smaller malls in the country.

In 1905, Phoenix Mills Ltd. was started as a textiles corporation, manufacturing and trading in cotton. However, by the time Mr. Ruia had returned from studying Business and Management in the United States, the Great Bombay Textile Strike of the 1980’s was well under way, and the corporation was quickly losing money. Workers demanded greater wages and the demand for cotton mills reduced. In a "controversial" turn of the company's direction, Mr. Ruia decided to shut down the family’s mills, and instead use the land for the development of shopping malls and hotels. By 1987, Mr. Ruia had led the corporation to its first major project, the creation of the High Street Phoenix mall, home to Mumbai’s first big bowling alley. In the years since, Phoenix Mills Co. has created multiple shopping malls and business centres across India, and has even entered the hotel trade with the building of the St. Regis Hotel in Mumbai.

In his humble manner, Mr. Ruia shared a few of the life lessons he learnt in his years of experience as an entrepreneur with DAIS students. He extolled the virtues of hard work and perseverance, recalling his struggle against both his family and the larger entrepreneurial community in the 1980’s when he suggested that the mills be shut down. On a more playful note, he reminisced about the time he had spent as the owner of one of Mumbai’s first bars, Fire and Ice. Aspiring entrepreneurs amongst the students drunk in every morsel of advice and experience. In an enlightening question and answer session towards the end of the speech, Mr. Ruia explained his motivations: to bring development to all parts of India and making shopping easier and more accessible. He advised to students never to accept failure as “Nothing fails ever! It is only momentary. You have tyo keep giving 100% and sometimes change gear. Success HAS to come to you!”