Vivek Gahlaut is the co-founder of Terra Firma Commodities, an oil and commodity trading company that has reached its revenues of $86 million within a span of seven years. He has worked for 24 years in three countries and has made important contributions to finance, health and wellness, and sustainable food production. He continues to push global markets to grow and works hard to adopt new technologies through his ideas and leadership.
The Indian native, Vivek Gahlaut has achieved a lot in his personal and professional journey from his childhood. He was very young when he started doing very well in his school. As soon as he completed his graduation, he enrolled for his graduation from the National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra in 1993 and completed his graduation in 1997. He was very eager to learn and understand how global business works that is why after his graduation he decided to pursue his higher studies and in 2001, and went to Thunderbird Global School of Management, which is part of Arizona State University, to get a Master’s in International Management with a focus on Finance.
Early Professional Experience in the United States
After finishing his college studies, he started working as a professional at Toshiba in New Delhi, in their TV picture tube manufacturing facility. During his tenure at the company, he learned a lot about the factory’s work process and excelled his knowledge to run businesses. But later-on his desire to learn more about the world led him to the United States in 2001 to get an MBA.
After obtaining his master’s degree in 2003, Vivek Gahlaut went to work for Ernst & Young in New York and quickly became an important part of the Financial Services Advisory group. For the next six years, he was in charge of several projects such as in finance, cash management, and financial risk management. He started advising Fortune 500 companies, top banks, asset managers, hedge funds, and insurance companies. People started trusting his financial knowledge which emerged him as a leader known globally. In the last two years of his job in New York, he switched his working style and decided to provide his independent consulting and continued to work hard for private clients with the same level of skill and commitment.
Business ventures by entrepreneurs in India
Vivek moved back to India in 2010 with a lot of knowledge and a strong desire to make a big difference in the Health & Wellness field. He invested his money and started working as a consultant back into this new field, from where he was able to run five health and fitness clubs successfully. Besides that, he started a successful business trading gym equipment, selling high-quality gear to both businesses and individuals.
Though Vivek Gahlaut Dubai was eager to start his own business for a very long time, apart from establishing his own gym & health club, he was involved in running a family angel fund that gave early funding to potential Indian tech startups. His investments not only gave these startups money, but also advice and mentoring, which helped the tech industry grow and come up with new ideas.
Expansion to the UAE and Commodity Trading
In 2013, Vivek Gahlaut received new opportunities and took advantage of that and moved to the UAE. He also noticed opportunity in the commodity trade market and co-founded a business that would send broken rice to important markets in West Africa. The business bought different kinds of broken rice from major producing countries and sold them straight to customers in the area. With Vivek’s strategy direction, the company expanded its products to include sugar, pasta, frozen foods, and raw cashew nuts, and it made an impressive USD 90 million in sales.
Commitment to Food Production That Will Last
Vivek’s future projects are driven by his desire to make food supply more sustainable. He wants to look into ways that the area can become more backward integrated, which would help key markets become food self-sufficient. Because he cares about sustainability and new ideas, he is seen as a leader who can make a big difference in the global food supply chain over the long run.