Mr. Kapur could you tell us something about your journey? How did you get into shipping in logistics? Like how did the things start?
answer : Yeah, so I grew up in India and when I was 15 years old, I had completed my class 12th in New Delhi, I was always thinking about adventurous lifestyle and I was wondering to travel all around the world. And then I saw an article in the newspaper that Singapore government is inviting people to have a career at sea and they were inviting cadets to come for an interview and enter in an examination. So I applied and got second rank and there were 8 cadets who were chosen to go at sea. So I was selected to be a part of Singapore Polytechnic to start my career from Singapore. I studied, graduated from Singapore in 2002, went on to the sea and I was a captain at the age of 26, 2006, when I stepped ashore and started my business in Singapore.
who was your inspiration and what was the struggle behind you know such a successful journey
answer : I was always a very independent child when I was young, I always wanted to travel the world & inspiration, I would say I have taken it not from anyone but it is just a mindset which I always had, struggles, It has been a very painful journey as well as very exciting journey. From when I was 15 all the way till I started my business. It has been a roller coaster ride, ups and downs of life but I chose never to give up. it is a very difficult life at sea, When you stay 9-10 months on ship, and you do not have any support those days, There was no Internet, no phone calls. You are always away from your family, you are missing your family, missing the food. But when you tell yourself that I want to achieve something, you don’t ever give up and you do, you finally make it.
So where do you see yourself in coming 10 years? What’s your goal?
answer :My goal is to become the biggest shipping person and a biggest shipping company in the world in a segment which is a handy tanker segment which are medium range tankers And the load clean petroleum products, palm oil, edible oil like soybeans oil, sunflower oil and transport them into Southeast Asia where the population of people are growing. There are more vehicles required, more airlines required and we are going to serve for the purpose of economic growth in Southeast Asia.
you are a successful entrepreneur so, when you look back how do you feel? And also, you are expanding your venture in India. How excited are you?
answer :I feel this is the right time for any shipping company in the world to have a right strategy. Our strategy is very simple. We are catering to the population which is increasing predominantly in India and Southeast Asia where the major development is happening in the industry and we want to serve the people of India where we want to bring down the petrol prices in India. There is a beautiful project laid down by Indian government, particular by Mr Modi, our Prime Minister in India, which is Sagar Mala project. We want to have the first shipping company to take his vision forward and I am very excited. It is going to be the first journey in India and we are looking forward to expand it to a very, very big structure.
Would you like to give any advice to our young entrepreneurs who look upon you?
answer: Yes, in today’s world, if you see there, it’s a very stressful life and people get mentally very tired. There is a lot of talk about mental health awareness. And I would say that people who feel exhausted in the studies or any career and they feel they are failure. They are not actually a failure. I feel that when you fail, you learn more and then you come out more strongly and you just need one success and you can have endless failures. My advice is never give up and this attitude can take you higher and the doors can open tomorrow.
you have a very unique name to your company, Mari MariTime. So how did you come up with this name? Could you tell us something about it?
answer: yeah, it’s a very good question. A lot of people ask me the same, Mare Maritime, Mare is a Latin word for sea, So I was always wanted to have something with the name of sea and Mare in Indian language also is like it is ours. So the name has inspired from there, this is a company which belongs to everybody, not only me, and also everything is related to sea so that is why.
I see the logo of om in all your shipping company and all your ships, it’s been imposed in your ships. What’s the significance of that?
answer: Yeah, so I’m a very spiritual person and I had decided that everything what I do, I would start with the name OM or the symbol OM. Why Because om is related to everything, The entire universe is inside om. The living state, the dead state, the people who are not there, peace and prosperity, Everything is related to om. So I thought about having om embossed on all my ships and in the logo and everywhere. Whatever work I start I always put om and this is something which is related to me since I was a child.
Lastly, any message you would like to give to our reader today?
answer: I would say that please watch out for Captain Rohit Kapur, watch out for Mare Maritime which is going to be a leading supplier of clean petroleum products and biggest logistics company coming out of India. There are no other companies which can compare to the growth what we will achieve and we will create to the needs of Indian government and to people and community of India. And not only we want to grow in terms of economic growth, but we are looking at underprivileged children whom we want to get them to have a career at see and we want to give an empowerment to Indian woman to come forward and take their dream forward ,And we want to take care in that community of woman where they are not allowed to go out and work. We want to make sure that they get endless job opportunities in logistics, in shipping business, there are various various entities where they can work and grow themselves and achieve their dream.
Wow, that’s an absolutely amazing vision. It was great talking to you Mr. Kapur, Thank you so much for giving us your time .
