Mr. Krish Suthanthiran,
President, Team Best Group, Founder and President of Kitsault Energy and President of Best Cure Foundation.
Krishnan Suthanthiran immigrated to Canada from India in September 1969, after graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Madras, India, to pursue his Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He arrived with a total of 400 Canadian Dollars. Subsequently, he received a National Research Council of Canada Research Assistantship, and graduated with a Master’s Degree in 1971. He moved to the United States in 1972 and worked as an Engineer-Physicist at Howard University Hospital until 1978. Since then he has founded and invested globally many millions of USD in Medical, Real Estate, Construction, Entertainment, and Energy Companies.
Mr. Suthanthiran founded and is currently supporting a number of Non Profit Charitable Foundations, in promoting quality education and healthcare, and making them affordable and accessible. He is pursuing a goal of providing purified drinking water and affordable sewer systems in every part of the world. He has contributed substantially for setting up endowments for scholarships and endowed chair. He has also donated significantly to support medical research and treatment by contributing and partnering with academic centers and hospitals globally. He is the President and Founder of the Best Cure Foundation and Kitsault Energy.
Excerpts from Interview with Thiru Krish Suthanthiran (For full interview, please checkout TAP 2015 Book at http://tinyurl.com/2015tap)
CK: You started as mechanical engineer but your heart was in medical field. You found a way eventually to medical field. Is it strictly a co-incidence or do you believe when your intention is strong that there will be a path that will be laid for you?
KS: It’s a partly intentional and partly accidental. My father died of cancer in 1968. He was diagnosed with cologne cancer 1965. I watched him for 3 years suffer and since 1965 my goal has been to somehow engage my career in cancer research treatment and cure. So I was basically looking at an opportunity so when I got an opportunity to come to Canada to do my mechanical engineering master’s degree, I took that opportunity to come to Canada. Subsequently I was open to do medicine in Canada so I took some pre-medicine courses and I was primarily vegetarian at that time and I had a difficult time when I took some courses in biology dissecting frogs and mice and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be medical doctor and I also wasn’t sure that I would be able to complete another 4 years of medical school and residency and after studying for 20+years. So finally decided that I will look for work or since I didn’t have a job I registered to pursue my phd at the university of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. December of 1972 I didn’t have anything and I did get my Green card to travel to the US so I travelled December in the US, looking for Jobs. I said if I get a job then I will not pursue the phd so I went to Detroit and Cleveland and Pittsburgh and my next stop was Washington DC so finally stayed for 2 days but I really fell in love with Washinton DC and decided to look for a job. So one of the oncologists in a local hospital in 1972, July is looking for a mechanical engineer or electrical to develop instrumentation for cancer treatment and research. So I got a job to work with him to work in Oncology. I was delighted as my ultimate goal was to work in Oncology. So that is what transitioned me from engineering to medical, developing instrumentation and technology for medicine, primarily for oncology.
CK: what is your growth model I believe your company is still private . It’s a private company not publicly traded. So what’s your growth model? How did it become big?
KS: The best model is organic growth. The alternate to organic growth is acquisitions. Acquisition is a necessary evil but acquisition is always challenging. About 10 years ago, I realized that I have to diversify from small company with limited product to really be able to survive long term. We saw really intensive competition in the product segment we were in. The prices dropped 90% so we selling almost same cost or below cost. So 20 companies went out of business. The only way to survive was diversification. In Today’s economy, you cannot be one trick pony. But at the same time, the diversification is expensive and risky. In the process, most of them were bad acquisitions. Some of them were okay. I wanted to be the best in whatever I do. That’s where the name Best came from. Then when I bought a number of companies, they all had different names. I didn’t want to kill the brand record so what I did was I kept a name but brought them under Best Umbrella so I called them collectively. Rather than calling a family of companies , I called them Team BEST.
How do you define success?
Success and happiness are related, If you are happy, you are successful. What makes you happy? You have to be happy with who you are.
Mr. Krish Suthanthiran’s TAP Tip For Success
Dont take yourself too seriously. You may not be a cricket player, baskteball player, volley ball player or a foot ball player. But you will be good at something. Focus on what you are good at.