59, male, and a serial generation entrepreneur/businessman/industrialist. I worked with Exide Batteries in Allentown, PA, and secured a contract to make battery covers at age 20. I set up a plant in Houston, TX, and sold the company as my family needed me back home to run the family business.
I love reading literature, watching classic movies, philosophy, economics, and exotic food. But I am crazy about doing business and figuring out how it works.
An exclusive private school called Sherwood College is run by Christian missionaries in the Himalayan Hill Station of Nainital, India.
I attended a local private school to prepare for high school. In high school, I got a top-20 rank nationwide and was awarded the National Scholarship.
Selected for the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology JEE entrance exam in 1982 and secured 783rd position among more than 500,000 candidates. Got admission to IIT, Kanpur. Chem.E. Secured partial scholarship to attend Lehigh University, PA, USA. Also secured admission to Princeton University but did not attend because they did not give me a scholarship.
Professional Education: BE in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh University, PA, USA.
Passion Education: Did the Vedanta Course on Philosophy in 1996 equivalent to a Bachelors in Philosophy.
Worked with my grandfather, B.M. Suri, managing Free India Silicate Factories, which had four factories making Sodium Silicate for soap and steel manufacturers.
I worked with my father, Mr. O.P. Suri, as a director managing Northern India Gas Co.Ltd, Northern India Acetylene Pvt: Ltd, and Indian Gases, which manufactured Industrial gases by air liquefaction. Northern India Gas Co.Ltd was taken public with an IPO on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Established my own company, APP Pvt.Ltd to manufacture Vinyl Acetate Monomer (VAM) in Ankleshwar, Gujarat, India, and a subsidiary, Sanjay Enterprises, to supply industrial gases and welding consumables to the Ministry of Defence, Government of India, where I achieved a grade A contractors rating. We also demolished the operations of Indian Oxygen Ltd. A company 200 times our size – I sold the business to a prominent business house in Bombay at attractive terms.
Started my first e-commerce venture, www.replicaters.com . The internet was new then. There were only 500,000 users in India then, and there are over 500 million now. We went global with our products, making and supplying historical uniforms and military accoutrements to over 25 countries through our website. We assisted in providing gear and uniforms for movies like Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, etc, and are/have been suppliers to dealers like What Price Glory, Soldier of Fortune, Epic Militaria, and numerous others. In 2020, I passed this business on to my son. While I was managing the business, we maintained a top-three rank for our products, Google, Yahoo, and Bing, and have a customer base of over 25,000 international users. We have no customers in India.
I have been deeply studying AI and AI systems and am interacting with various professors and faculty members of the IIT Department of Computer Science and also with other technical institutions. I am now launching this new venture.
There are I am a 4th generation entrepreneur/businessman/industrialist (although all three terms differ). My great-grandfather came from west undivided India and was one of the leading merchants of commodities at that time, being a member of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce, Bombay Commodities Exchange, and Marwari Chamber of Commerce (even though he was not a Marwari – the Marwaris have been called the Jews of India and their business techniques are studied at Harvard). He did not know how to read or write.
My grandfather was an MA in mathematics and Law (rare for an Indian in the British Raj) and established many ventures that were technologically groundbreaking in India at that time, like Solvent Extraction Plants and ferric Alum manufacturing, and then settled down to manufacturing Sodium Silicate at more than four factories all over the country. My father pioneered manufacturing independent industrial gases; the technology was in the domain of a few multinationals at that time. He has an MBA.
I have been happily married to my wife of 30 years, Anju, who is my partner in crime and support system. She has a master's in English and Geography from Lucknow University. I have one son, Bharat, who has a BBA and manages www.replicaters.com He is also an aspiring artist.
