A Self-made Man

Mahesh Singhis story is inspiring. From humble beginnings in Rajasthan to acquiring an engineering degree to propelling through a series of career choices to building one of the country's largest corporate advisory and investment banking firms, here is a man who truly is self-made.

- Joseph Rozario

AS THE FOUNDER AND MANAGING director of Singhi Advisors, life has come a long way for Mahesh Singhi. Name, fame, wealth, growing influence—he has them all today! But it wasn't always so.

Born into a family of simple means, Mahesh Singhi went to a dariwala school in Sirohi, Rajasthan—so called because students sat on daris, or mats—where his father taught. Considering his humble beginnings, the odds were against him, more so given his limited knowledge of English and his impaired vision in the right eye, but his superior intellect and studiousness helped him sail through school with ease, and then secure admission to Jaipur’s Malaviya National Institute of Technology from where he emerged with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1984.

Building a career

Through with academics, it was time for earning. “I started my career with LML Vespa as a trainee engineer, in Kanpur, where I used to earn 1,400 per month, working in rotational shifts,” says Singhi looking back. Lohia Machinery Limited (LML), had collaborated with Piaggio Vespa of Italy which was to revolutionise the scooter market in India.

The discrepancy in pay between trainees and factory workers and other stifling human resource issues at LML, however, were to soon leave Singhi a disgruntled man. So at the end of his stipulated year of traineeship, he had a war of words with his boss and quit.