Entrepreneur's Story

A Story Of World's Youngest CEO:Suhas Gopinath

About ten to twelve years ago, when Suhas founded the foundation of Global Inc, he was only fourteen years old, and then he himself did not even know that he has become the youngest CEO of the world. And he did this work, not sitting in a luxury office but sitting in a small Cyber-Cafe in Bangalore.Today Globals Inc is a multi-million dollar company and its operations are spread across the USA, UK, Spain, Australia and so on. Only at the age of twenty-five years, when most people are engaged in completing their studies; Only then Suhas Gopinath has achieved many achievements -

• He is the BOARD MEMBER of the World Bank's ICT Advisory Council. 

  •    In the year 2007, he was awarded "Young Achiever Award" by the European Parliament and International Association for Human Values.

  •  He is also the youngest member of the World Economic Forum. 

    World Economic Forum Also honored him with the honor of 'Young Global Leaders' for 2008-09.

    Childhood of Suhas:I belong to a middle-class family. My father used to work as a Scientist in the Indian Army. And I was studying at Banglore's Air Force School. My interest in animal and animal science was in childhood. But when I had a PC with my friends; I used to listen to talking about the computer and there was a desire in me that I too would talk like them.At that time there was no computer at our house nor could we afford it. So I found an internet cafe near my house, then I used to get only 15 rupees as pocket money every month, every day so much money could not be surfed. But I had a notice about this shop, it was closed from 1 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the afternoon. I gave a shop to the shopkeeper that after school, from 1 a.m. to 4 p.m. i will open your shop and take care of the customers. In return you'll let me surf the net in free. This was my first business deal of life, and it proved to be very successful.

    The craze to create a website:Now I had both computers and internet. . Slowly I started making the website. And in a short time it became my passion. There are some freelance marketplace on the Internet where I register as a website-builder. I had to make the first website free of cost because I did not have the references. This was a company website from New York. My first earning was $ 100 which I got to make another website, then I was 13 years old. Since I did not have any bank account, I told my father about this.I was not too excited to take the money. Because I used to do this work for my passion, not for money. I also made the website in free, then I was a student of class IX. After that I created a portal called coolhindustan.com. Which was focussed on NRIs. I wanted to show my skills through this portal. After that many companies started approaching me to make my web-designer.

    When got a job-offer from the US: When I was fourteen, I got a part-time job offer from NetworkSolutions, a US company that was ready to sponsor my education in the US. But I rejected that offer because at the same time I had read about Bill Gates that how he started Microsoft.I thought it was more fun to start my company. Many US companies used to tell me that I do not even have a mustache and they feel insecure in taking my services. He used to connect my ability with my age and qualification. That's why I thought of starting my company so that I can show the world that age and academic qualification do not matter. I decided that when I started my company, I would just take youngsters and would not ask them about their academic qualification or marks. Today I follow this thing in my company.

    When his company started at the age of fourteen:Shortly after the Class 9th holiday ended, I had my company Globals Inc. Introduced I wanted to name the company Global or Global Solutions, but both names were not available, so I named the Globals.I registered my company in the US because in India you can not enter the company under 18 years of age. In the US, it takes just 15 minutes to start the company. I became the owner and CEO of the company, a friend of mine who was a student of the University of the United States became a board member. I was quite excited because that was what I wanted to do. From that day onwards I began to dream of making my company Microsoft bigger.Globals Inc.'s turn-over Rs. 1 lac, which increased in second year to Rs. Got 5 Lacs .

    On becoming a board-member of the World Bank in 2005:I took engineering to my parents' wishes but could not complete it like Bill Gates. When I was the 5th semester, then World Bank invited me to attend his board meeting. I was an Indian in that board Its aim was to improve quality of education by using ICT in emerging economies. Mr. Robert Zoellick, the President of World Bank, did not want the Americans just in the board; they wanted members from other countries too. And since he was focusing on education, he wanted to include young minds in it.I had never even dreamed that I would ever become a Board member of the World Bank. This was the most unforgettable moment of my life. I had to report directly to Robert B Zoellick. CEO of Cisco, VP of Microsoft, CEO of SAP, etc. were also the members of this board.

    On the future of your company: I have always believed that IT is not just a technology, but a tool to solve problems. And I want to do this in this company. I want Globals to be market-leader in providing related software solutions related to educations.When I was young I did not care much about money, but now I am responsible for my employees, if I do not think about money, then we will not be able to scale-up. When I started a company from a cafe in Bangalore, I did not even think that it would become a multi-million dollar company one day. My driving force is my passion and the journey till now has been quite amazing.                              

    Thankyou....