Very few dare to find their passion and follow their dreams at a young age. Among the few is Suhas Gopinath, who became the youngest world CEO at age 17.
Suhas laid the foundation of his company at an age when many children could not even figure out what they wanted to become. He is among the youngest world achievers.
As part of his super inspirational story, in 2020, the youngest CEO owns a net worth of $49 million. He is 33 years old now.
How It Started
Gopinath comes from Bangalore, where his father works as a defense scientist and his mother is a homemaker. At the age of 14, his friends used to tease him because he didn’t have a personal computer. The incident made Gopinath decide that one day he would prove himself to the world. Suhas Gopinath started spending his meagre pocket money of Rs 15 per month on internet cafes, but the investment was not enough to sustain his explorations. So, he made a deal with the cafe owner to look after his shop in his absence, and that was probably his first entrepreneurial negotiation. He used to spend hours grabbing knowledge about the World Wide Web.
With all the knowledge and skills gathered, Suhas laid the foundation of his company, Globals Inc., just at the age of 14. The company was a kind of solutions company where the focus was on providing innovative solutions for cloud and mobile applications. The enterprise also looked after product development services for industries including government, education, media, etc.
Shortcomings faced by Suhas in setting up
Establishing an enterprise at such an early age was indeed an achievement for Suhas, but business people didn’t take it the same way. No one was ready to invest in his business, considering him a naive and gullible teenager. He found it tough to run a business while maintaining clients. Talking about his early days, Suhas says, “People never took me seriously. Even my clients or bureaucrats used to tell me they wanted to meet my dad for project discussions. And honestly, my dad had no clue what I was working on.”
Suhas faced problems while hiring people—the extreme is that he never gave heed to legal agreements, which ultimately led him towards trust betrayals and payment failures. However, gradually, he started taking on small projects first to build up his portfolio.
The Ultimate Success Story
Gopinath’s project, “coolhindustan.com,” made him the world’s youngest certified professional web developer at the age of 14. His ability to work with commitment and with clients across the world outshone the talent he possessed. His brainchild venture, Globals Inc., operates in 14 countries at present. It also got featured in a London-based newspaper as one of the world’s fastest-growing tech companies.
Gopinath has received many accolades, including Karnataka’s Rajyotsava award and the ‘Young Achiever’ award at the European Parliament. The World Economic Forum also conferred on him the ‘Young Global Leader for 2008–09. International media firms like the BBC and the Washington Times ranked him on the world’s youngest CEO list when he was only 17.
Suhas Gopinath is a true example of how hard work and perseverance with the right attitude can lead you to success. Age does not matter; your work with determination matters.
Revealing the motivation for his inspiring world record at such a tender age, he said, “I was very much motivated by the successful path of Mr. Bill Gates. At the age of 14, I established Globals, Inc. with the primary motive of providing a platform to talented youngsters worldwide based on their skill sets, irrespective of their age and academics. Today, when I look back, I feel proud that, as an entrepreneur, I have been able to create job opportunities for more than 600 talented youngsters worldwide.”
Recognition
In 2005, Gopinath was the youngest among the 175 recipients of Karnataka’s Rajyotsava Award.
On December 2, 2007, the European Parliament and the International Association for Human Values conferred the “Young Achiever Award” on Gopinath at the European Parliament in Brussels.
In November 2008, he was invited to represent the World Bank’s ICT Leadership Roundtable on adopting ICT in Africa to increase employability and foster ICT skills in students from these countries.
He was announced as the “Young Global Leader” for 2008–2009 by the World Economic Forum, Davos. In that position, he would be involved in development programs across the world. He holds a diploma in global leadership and public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Harvard University.
