From Friends to Business Tycoons

At a time when even blood no longer ties a family together, Radhe Shyam Agarwal and Radhe Shyam Goenka’s long-standing friendship has defied the odds. Not only has the duo created the Emami business empire from the ground up, but more incredibly, their two families seem to have joined resources to act as one large extended joint family, who have held together strongly through triumphs and tribulations alike.

- Ritusmita Biswas

THOUGH OFFICIALLY EMAMI AS A COMPANY STARTED TAKING shape from 1974, its seeds had been sown decades earlier in the form of an inseparable bond of friendship between two students of Kolkata’s Maheswari Vidyalaya: Radhe Shyam Agarwal and Radhe Shyam Goenka. Their friendship stood the test of time through sunshine and rain, leading them to other avenues, one of which was the partnership venture that was to fuel Emami’s stupendous growth into one of the foremost and fastest growing personal and health-care businesses in India.

The roots 

Coming back to the two friends, interestingly, not only did they share their first names but also a similar and equally intense passion for building a business empire. To this end, they were prepared to go so far as to even leave behind their independent high-flying careers, which they did, and hand in hand take a daring plunge into the unknown world of enterprise. Committed and completely attuned to each other, they took up the challenge of setting up an Ayurvedic medicine and cosmetic manufacturing unit called Kemco Chemicals in Kolkata in 1974, at a time when West Bengal was marked with political and labour unrest. The rest, as they say, is history. Starting with going from store to store to sell their products, they went on to acquire the Himani and Zandu brands, and today Emami has few parallels in the Ayurvedic formulations genre.

But what is it that made the two friends tick? And what were the reasons behind their enormous success? In reply, both Radhe Shyam Agarwal and Radhe Shyam Goenka almost chirp in unison, “Well, we don’t take credit for anything singularly; our successes and failures are on us both.”

Early life and education