Rizwan Adatia, Chairman, COGEF Group and RAF Global
He wants more and more people to take inspiration from his experiences so that they learn the value of resilience and the attitude of never giving up.
The more we speak about a few individuals carving their own unique niche in their desired industries, all on their own, even amidst massive competition and saturation, the more we feel the need to talk about their journeys and the success they created for themselves. It is essential to put more light on the journeys of such high-performing professionals to ingrain more hope, positivity and motivation in other rising talents across sectors. Philanthropist, speaker and business magnate Rizwan Adatia is one among such magnificent business personalities who never left a stone unturned to become an influential yet humble and kind business owner who is well respected and admired across the business world for his phenomenal works.
However, as they say, nothing has ever come easy to anyone who has dreamt big or has wanted to achieve splendid success. Rizwan Adatia, too, had his share of struggles and challenges, but he highlights, “There are only challenges in life, not problems.” He goes back in time, telling us how he started with nothing but only dreams in his eyes as one of the youngest siblings in a family that belonged to a lower-income background in Porbandar. At a very young age, to fulfil his dreams of doing something big in life, he followed the footsteps of one of his siblings, Ashique bhai, who was already in Africa at that time. He ignited the fire in him to move to Africa and learn new things for setting up a business. Following his dreams, he took up that challenge and landed in Kinshasa from Porbandar via Nairobi in 1986.
To know more about Rizwan Adatia you can watch movie made on him available on Youtube. Here’s the link.
From learning the local language and building a rapport with co-workers to understand the business trades and gaining knowledge, every day came with a considerable challenge, which Rizwan smilingly would overcome. In five years, he learned everything and successfully ran grocery stores in Kinshasa, under the guidance and support of Ashique bhai and also one of his colleagues and well-wishers. However, another challenge knocked on his door in 1991 when social unrest and riots occurred, and they had to watch their stores getting burned down into ashes. Giving up was never an option for Rizwan, and he, along with his colleagues ensured to work even harder with resilience and hope, which led them to repay their loans within two years.
Rizwan recalls how Kinshasa, even after two years, saw more riots, and so he had to move to India for some time. In 1993, he started everything from scratch in Lubumbashi. Slowly and steadily, he ran five stores. However, by the time the riots had even reached Lubumbashi. One of his friends, Shamshuddin Bhai, faced tough times due to the same, but Rizwan came to his rescue. Overcoming the challenge of riots and helping his friend too, he decided to further expand their business, opening two distribution offices in two African countries. Rizwan moved to Maputo to return to his traditional grocery store business.
While he settled with his new businesses in Maputo, he got a big blow losing his father in India. Rizwan still did not lose hope and made sure to stay focused on his businesses after being there for his loved ones and family in India. Since that point in his life, this highly determined professional and business owner kept facing the storms one after the other, but did he ever give up? This is a question many wondered about. Rizwan Adatia held the ground firm and eventually became the frontrunner and Chairman of COGEF, a renowned multinational private consumer goods group.
Today, Rizwan Adatia (@rizwanadatia) is also a speaker, and a philanthropist with the RAF Global, known for providing to the disadvantaged through tons of valuable and impactful projects and initiatives across countries of Africa and Asia.