The gold rush: How Rajesh Mehta's out of the box ideas helped him build his jewellery empire

Rajesh Mehta

Rajesh Mehta, founder and executive chairman of Rajesh Exports Ltd, wanted to become a doctor till he realised that the jewellery business was his calling

What was to be a 30-minute meeting with Rajesh Mehta, founder and executive chairman of Rajesh Exports Ltd, went on for 180 minutes. While the 52-year-old had much to talk about where his India-listed company is concerned—it exported almost 130 tonnes of gold last fiscal and refines nearly 35 percent of the total gold mined in the world—he was equally inundated with phone calls and impromptu meetings with company executives and clients.

Mehta’s small corner office, on the first floor of Batavia Chambers on Kumara Krupa Road in Bengaluru, near the official residence of Karnataka’s chief minister, is dimly lit. His large and heavy worktable occupies most of the space. On one side of the table top are numerous statues of Lord Ganesha, worshipped as the remover of obstacles and also considered the god of intellect and wisdom. There are more than 300 Ganesha idols, clarifies Mehta; some are made from silver, gold and ivory, while others are studded with rubies and opals. “We [my family] are Jains, and we believe in Ganesha. He is an auspicious god,” says Mehta.

Six minutes into our meeting, Mehta excuses himself and picks up one of his four mobile phones. Only one of these is a smartphone (an iPhone 4 series from 2010-11), while the rest are mid-priced feature phones. His conversation is in Gujarati. Minutes later, he answers another call, on another phone, where he breaks into fluent Kannada. Mehta claims to be conversant in four other Indian languages as well.
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