Interview with Sohani Hossain

Tell us about your background and how did you get into the business?

In my teens, I used to take a lot of interest in politics. In fact, my college life to the major extent comprised of my active participation in politics. Post completing the college, I got married to a businessman. In 2007, unfortunately, my husband died and I had to take over the business.

How difficult was it to run the business alone?

The challenge seemed insurmountable. I had zero knowledge of managing the business. But, I did not have the option to give up as I had five daughters to take care of. Thus, with no one to rely on, I took over the control and decided to learn on the go.

Share with us your experience of running the business?

I derived my motivation from the women in Bangladesh who had been neglected and suppressed for long. Besides this, there was a lot of hard work of course. I had always been fascinated by corporates and wanted to learn from them. In those initial years, I, therefore, strived to regularly interact with them and draw learnings, which ultimately I incorporated into my husband’s business.

What has been the impact of those learnings?

Oh! The business has achieved quantum jumps in both growth and diversification. While my husband ran movie theatres, I have successfully diversified into hospitality, pharma and food products’ domain. In the near future, we will open hospitals to serve society. Our turnover stands at BDT(Bangladeshi Taka) 400-600 crore, and we employ around 10,000 employees.

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