By SBS Hindi | Australia |
Tarun Gupta says he couldn’t find work for the first eight weeks and was left with merely $50 after arriving from India in 1992. He then landed himself a job at a local Indian restaurant in Newcastle.
“I cleaned toilets, cut onions, distributed pamphlets and did whatever the chef asked me to do,” says Mr Gupta, the newly appointed and first Indian-origin CEO of Stockland.
“The chef soon left and opened his restaurant across the street, so the restaurant owner asked me if I wanted to learn how to fire the tandoor [clay oven] and prepare dishes. I said of course because it was a specialised and secure job,” Mr Gupta says, adding that his hands bore the brunt from the tandoor’s heat in the first week.
Mr Gupta said Stockland is Australia’s largest house and land developer firm.
Mr Gupta, who now lives with his wife and two teenage children in Sydney’s most sought-after Bondi suburb, comes from a modest family in India. His father, a retired Indian Police Service officer, and mother had migrated to India from Pakistan during the dreadful partition of the two countries in 1947.
“Our families came with almost nothing as refugees. I draw my inspiration from my father and family who worked hard as immigrants,” he says.
The youngest of three siblings, Mr Gupta, credits his success to the ethos he inherited from his parents, who now live next door to him in Sydney.
“My father was an honest police officer and retired as director-general of the police anti-corruption with Uttar Pradesh Police. He used to catch corrupt police officers,” the 51-year-old says proudly.
See full story, ‘From international student to CEO: Meet the new boss of Australia’s largest home and land developer’ (SBS, 28 Sept 2021), here.
RELATED STORY:
Singapore property veteran Karamjit Singh leaves JLL (Asia Samachar, 29 Nov 2016)
ASIA SAMACHAR is an online newspaper for Sikhs / Punjabis in Southeast Asia and beyond.Facebook | WhatsApp +6017-335-1399 | Email: editor@asiasamachar.com | Twitter | Instagram | Obituary announcements, click here |
