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CEO at 19!

Meet Suhas Gopinath, a young entrepreneur, who hopes to get his company listed on Nasdaq

PHOTO: SAMPATH KUMAR

UNUSUAL SUCCESS STORY Suhas Gopinath

Dressed in jeans and T-shirt, the teenaged Suhas Gopinath soon found that it was going to be difficult to get into the auditorium where he had been invited to address directors of companies and chief executive officers in Bangalore. Suhas had come straight from college and did not find time to change into formal clothes. "I don't have my ID card," he told the security man at the door, "but here are the visiting cards of the people I know."

That failed to convince the guard. He refused to let Suhas enter the auditorium where business people waited to hear from the teenager who had turned down an offer from a Fortune 500 company for a job that brought with it a $ 2000 pay cheque a week, a chauffer-driven car and an apartment."It may sound funny now, but it was humiliating then," said Suhas. Nineteen-year-old Suhas is eager to talk about how he established Globals Inc., a multi-national company with offices in 11 countries, offering software applications in web designing, computer networking and e-commerce.

"As a kid, I wanted to be a veterinary doctor. Then one day when I was 12, I went with my elder brother to a cyber centre. I got interested in how e-mail worked and asked my brother to create an e-mail account for me. Coming from a middle class family we could not afford a PC but I liked to touch the mouse and play with the keyboard," Suhas recalls. Though in the football team, he began neglecting the sport. "I used to sit in the cyber centre all the time, using up my pocket money," he says. However, when he did badly in maths in his Board exams, his mother was not happy, and lectured him on the importance of doing well in studies. Suhas reminded her that Bill Gates was a college dropout.

A company in the United States offered to host a website Suhas had created and was quite impressed with his web development skills. "They asked me to address a seminar in New York and offered me a job as Chief Web Developer. But I was firm about my decision. I wanted to start a company and offer my services to them."

However, his attempts to launch a private limited company ran into rough weather. "I was disappointed by Indian laws that do not allow `kids' to start companies. In the U.S., such laws do not exist," he said.

To get around the problem, Suhas established Globals Inc. at San Jose in California, in 2000. The enterprise expanded from four to 400 employees and is poised to open a branch in Karachi.

In dealing with his employees, most of whom are much older than him, Suhas follows a policy of "treating them as family members." Suhas said that interest and dedication had brought him success. Starting a company or becoming a chief executive officer was easy, but what mattered was being able to expand the company.

Currently studying for a bachelor's degree in Information Science Engineering in Bangalore, Suhas hopes to get his company listed on the Nasdaq next year, and shift its headquarters to Bangalore.

A. A. MICHAEL RAJ

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