People
Harinderpal Singh Banga of Noble House:
On Fortune 500, Forbes Lists
by PRABHJOT SINGH
When Punjab's Harinderpal Singh Banga - Harry to his friends - decided to quit established corporate life to quench his entrepreneurial thirst, no one could imagine that 21 years later, his new company would be among the world's elite companies -- it listed at 242 on the Fortune 500 list in 2010 with an annual revenue of US $ 35 billion.
Personally, he is listed by Forbes amongst Hong Kong's 40 Richest People.
Now his company, Noble Group, has over 11,000 employees with 150 offices in 38 countries.
"If you take a cup of coffee, say at Barista or Coffee Café Day or any worldwide chain, it must have come with ingredients from our company. We cultivate 25 million hectares all over the world and grow coffee, coco, sugarcane and soyabean. We have a capacity to crush 22 million tonnes of sugarcane," says Harry.
He has strong roots in Punjab. "I grew up in Chandigarh and had been visiting the city four to five times a year to look up my father there. Unfortunately, my father met with an accident and now lives with my brother in Delhi," said he, maintaining that his association with Chandigarh, the Sector 8 Gurdwara, the PGI and several other NGOs engaged in social work continues unabated.
He had joined the England-based Gulf International in early 80s. The company posted him to Hong Kong from where he was transferred to Zurich in Switzerland.
"I did not like it in Zurich. I teamed up with my colleague, Richard S. Elman, and decided to quit and form our own company. What started out as a small commodities trading firm with 10 people in a small office in Hong Kong, we are now market leaders in managing the global supply of agricultural, energy, metals and mining resources. It is our company that controls electric supply in California," he says.
While building Noble into a company like no other and depite living outside Punjab for most of his life, Harinderpal Singh has never forgotten his roots. As Vice Chairman and a substantial shareholder of Noble Group, he has utilised his position to promote India on the world stage, help advance the economic and social development back home, and even enhance cross cultural ties between India and other nations globally.
"The success mantra of our company," he says, "is that everyone believes that he is a part of the family. It is difficult to get in and even more difficult to get out of the Noble group," he says maintaining that the company prides itself in looking after everyone as an equal participant.
[Courtesy: Tribune]
January 11, 2011