Clutching Victory

How Setco Automotive Chairman and Managing Director Harish Sheth Built the Largest Clutch Manufacturer in India.

- Sharon Masige

Setco Automotive Chairman and Managing Director Harish Sheth believes that, in life, you have to create your own opportunities. “I have never seen any opportunity coming my way,” he tells The CEO Magazine. “I’ve had to create it, and then grab it properly.” Harish founded the largest clutch manufacturer in India and his journey to establishing the business followed this principle.

At the age of 17, Harish travelled to the US to study mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan. From there, he went on to do an MBA at Columbia University, where he majored in Finance. While in the US, Harish also spent some time working as an investment banker before returning home to India, aged 24.

While working at a foreign bank back in India, Harish eventually came to a realisation. “I decided that I’d had enough of advising others on investments,” he recalls. “That it was high time I started making money for myself.” It was then that Harish seized an opportunity.

Harish’s uncle had a small unit – which he describes as “an old cowshed” – that his family decided to take over and, in 1974, he quit the bank and established his own engineering business. “After a few years, I decided that I should make a product and not the components,” Harish recalls. “In those days, industry licences were only held by the government and every state had its own licences for producing various products. Without a licence, we couldn’t produce anything on our own.”