Arun Samuel

Chairman and Managing Director, Wings Group of Companies

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Having dropped out of school after Class 11, Arun Samuel struggled as a teenage door-to-door salesman. But with determination, perseverance, and the favour of God, he launched his own business, which now has more than 8,500 employees, a turnover of over ₹1,200 crore, and offices in at least seven countries.

As the Chairman and MD of the Wings Group of Companies, Arun offers end-to-end marketing, branding and promotional solutions to brands such as Kissan, Gillette, Intel, Flipkart, Max, Coca-Cola, Aditya Birla, and Airtel. Arun is married to Susy Matthew, and they have two children — David and Michelle.

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I want to mention that all glory goes to Jesus. Because if I can boast, it’s in his goodness. My brother Sayyed spoke about MSc. I got a PhD — Passed High school with great Difficulty. And by the grace of God, I am where I am because of his grace. And I can say this is not possible by human hands because I’ve seen — I’ve been in this business for 40 years. In the last 5 years, we grew from a ₹30 crore company to a ₹1,300 crore company. A few years back, I tried to take it from ₹17 crore to ₹30 crores. It took five years, it took four CEOs, and we still couldn’t do it. So I know it is the grace of God. 

And for many sitting down here, you’ll be wondering — I’ve been to many of these meetings before, listening to people who are successful. And it’s very easy to say, “Oh, he’s got success.” But I want to say to you, we come from a middle-class home. My father was working in HAL in Bangalore. My mother was working in CSI. We were very much in a middle-class home. We knew what hunger was at times. We knew difficulties. And God has been good. It was a good Christian home that I grew up in. My parents were good people. We studied in a school in Bangalore — St John’s High School. A very strict school. Things went well. 

My father was an engineer, so he wanted me to be an engineer. And he wanted me to join the science stream and take it up, but for some strange reason, I had my friends, those in Bangalore will know. So I was with them and I said, “No.” They were going to do commerce. I said, “Even I want to do commerce.” We went and joined Christ College. And on the very first day we went in, all hell broke loose. On the first day there was a party. My friend said his brother’s the President of the college. “The Presidents run the college. Don’t worry about the management. We will party, and then finally, we’ll do the exam. And in the second year, we’ll focus completely.” I took his word and did so, and finally I got into a lot of trouble, got thrown out of college, could not go back to write the exam. I was not allowed. But my friend, who told me that we could bunk and work later, managed to do it. 

We come from a middle-class home. My father was working in HAL in Bangalore. My mother was working in CSI. We were very much in a middle-class home. We knew what hunger was at times.

And I discovered that his father was a businessman. And he knew how to handle the principals at that time. And my father was working in HAL. He was a decent man — 9 to 5. He did not know how to handle these people. And something happened that day while I was sitting outside, watching those guys going and doing the exam. I said, “There’s something about businessmen. They make things happen. I got to be a businessman.” 

But anyway, things went on, and I was out there not knowing what to do. Totally mixed up. And I remember one of the people from our area coming and saying that there was a job for a house tour, door-to-door, and in-shop campaign, where we just had to sell different products. There was first ZeroB, and then different products came in. So I said, “Hey, that’s good.” I said, “What’s the payment?” He said, “₹50 a day.” So we signed up to sell that product from a Bombay-based company. We took up the job and I was doing door-to-door and different sales. 

I remember one specific incident where we were given a different product — Revel from TOMCO was coming into the market, and they were launching a washing-machine detergent. And the washing-machine detergent was supposed to be given free. And I said, “This is wonderful. There are no sales here. It’s only going and giving it free-free.” So I was very happy to do that job. And I went. I remember at 2:30, going and knocking at a house. And the person didn’t come out. I knocked again, and finally I saw a man coming out, looking very angry with me. And I gave him the best smile I could. I took out the packet. I showed it to him. And I said, “Sir, I’ve come to give you a free, free, free washing-machine detergent from TOMCO. And I also gave him a Lata Mangeshkar cassette that we used to give along with that. I thought he would be happy, but the next thing he did was he took that packet and he burst it on my head. He hit it on my head. It burst. And all the powder came down. I was standing there, totally embarrassed. And he said, “Have you got any sense? Go wash your brains.” I still remember his words: “Go wash your brains with this powder.” 

And all sorts of thoughts kept coming to my mind. Thoughts of suicide, thoughts of just giving up on life. And I was wondering what to do.

And I can laugh at it right now, but at that time it was not so easy. I did not know what to do with his anger. I dusted off the powder. I turned around. That was the worst walk, from the door to the gate. I had a bike. I got onto the bike and I went. This was on Robertson Road. I went to a park close by and sat on the elephant there. As I sat on the elephant, everything in me broke down. I saw my life, the mess I made. I saw my parents as decent people with a lot of expectation, and here I was, just fooling around. And all sorts of thoughts kept coming to my mind. Thoughts of suicide, thoughts of just giving up on life. And I was wondering what to do. 

And at that time, a story from Sunday School and VBS started coming to my mind. The story of David. And I said to myself, “Wait a minute. Here I am, feeling sorry for myself, but the story of David is coming to me.” And I looked up and I said, “God, either the story of David is a true story. Either the Bible is a good story book or there is power in the Bible.” I said, “If David could become a king from a shepherd boy, here I am. I’m messed up. I’m asking you to forgive me. But can you give me a second chance? Can you be the one who lifts me up just as you did for David?” And I said a simple prayer and I remember getting up and going onto the bike. One side of me said, “Go back, give up on the job.” And that’s the crossroads that many of us go through. But the second said, “No, go for the next call.” And I thank God I went for that. If not, we would not have been here. And the second when I went there, the lady who I went to give the next product to was an angel. And I realised God sends angels sometimes in human form to be a blessing. 

And this part of the story I want to tell is that when I asked God to do something and God helped us. And the story goes on to how we started a company called Arrow Promotions and a partnership. And almost 10 years — from 1984 to almost 1993 — we were partners. And then we were drifting in different ways. And God sent a preacher, David Fernandez, from Bombay, to my home. I was driving him around and he came home. He was from IIM. He came to see my company and he saw that both the partners of Arrow Promotions were pulling in different directions. And he spoke about being unequally yoked and he spoke about how God is a jealous God. And he wanted me to leave the partnership and start on my own. I said, “David, you must be crazy. Sreeni is the man who talks. He’s the talking guy. I am the operational guy. I sweat. I need to have Halls, which I still have in my pocket, to be able to speak.” 

I would rather choke on greatness than nibble on smallness. — Arun Samuel Share on X

So he said, “Arun, do you trust God or do you trust yourself?” And thank God I took David’s advice. I went to speak to Sreeni. But before that, that same night I had a dream. In the dream I saw Abraham and Isaac. Abraham taking Isaac and going to sacrifice him. And I could see the young lad kept on the wooden platform and Abraham going to put the knife into Isaac. And that moment, for the first time in my life, I heard a voice saying, “Arun I’m asking you to sacrifice Arrow.” And the next thing I knew was I was standing on a cliff and I was looking down. I couldn’t see the bottom. It was dark. And then I looked up and I saw this blue sky and I saw an eagle flying and I heard the voice for the second time, saying, “Jump; you will not fall, but you will fly.” And that’s what I did. 

I don’t want to take much time. I’m trying to speed up the entire thing. God has been faithful. You can see the roadmap of how Wings grew from 1984. It was just a partnership, a company called Arrow. But in 1994, we did many things. We went around. I believe God taught us. I used to go give my card, but never got business. Knock on doors. We knocked on Arun Paul’s door. We never got business. But there were clients whose doors I went and knocked on, and God taught us, saying “When you give your card, ask them what challenges they go through. And when they share their challenges, find a solution. Because in that solution, you will get jobs.” And that’s what I did. We started going around. Stopped asking for jobs. Asked people, “What are the challenges that you face?” And came out with solutions. 

This is the journey of Wings. Went through many many different companies over time. And now if you look at it, we got 12 different companies, from activations to events to the sales force to call centres to turnkey projects, painting homes for Berger Paints, and Wings Education. We bought the Bishop Cotton School just a few weeks back for a 90-year lease. We got 60 years for the Baldwin School. We want to take the Christian mission schools that are failing, that are going down, we want to take them to another level because they’re going backwards. We want to bring back the worship in the mornings, especially in schools that have lost it. 

I said, “We cannot build a mission hospital compromising on certain things. We need to build up because it’s a Christian hospital.”

We also got into healthcare. We believe Wings Healthcare is mission at heart, corporate at service — that means keeping the rates reasonable but also making sure we have clean beds, clean toilets, and good medical service — because sometimes mission hospitals think that we should run things down. But we are saying we are competing with Manipal. We are competing with Apollo. I built hospitals for Manipal in my Wings Infrastructure divisions. I said, “We cannot build a mission hospital compromising on certain things. We need to build up because it’s a Christian hospital.” 

We have Wings Industries. We went to China when everybody was running out of China. We tied up partnerships. We brought a guy who makes T-shirts, and now we’re coming to Chennai to set up a unit. And the manufacturer is none other than Under Armour. We’d be setting up a unit for 5 million pieces. So we got into an industry that we knew nothing about, but because of the experience of the Chinese, we’re bringing their machinery, we’re doing it out here. 

God has been good. He’s been helping us to build our businesses. We have gone international. We are in eight countries. We’ve just bought Partners Worldwide in 35 countries. Every story, every company is a story of God’s faithfulness and provision. People look at me and they say, “Hey, aren’t you taking on too much?” And this is what I say, “I would rather choke on greatness than nibble on smallness.” I want to encourage the people out here who are listening. Many times, we think small. It’s time we stop thinking small. It’s time to think big. Stop fishing in a pond. Fish in the sea because there’s much opportunity. 

Don't just be where you are. Get out of your comfort zone. Fly high, soar high. — Arun Samuel Share on X

And the story of mine is about God’s goodness. He’s the one who’s been the glory and the lifter of our heads. I want to say to you that we have a big God. And I want to finish it with this beautiful story in which the father and the son are walking. And the son looks up at his father and he says, “Daddy, how big is God?” And the father is wondering how to answer the question. He looks down at his son and then he looks up and he sees an aircraft flying far away. And then he looks at his son and he says, “Son, how big is the aircraft?” And the small boy puts out a span with his little fingers and he tries to measure the size of the aircraft. And his father says, “Son, let’s go for a drive.” And they both go for a drive in the car. They go to a nearby airport. And when they go near, they see a big jet. And the father looks down to the son and says, “Son, how big is the aircraft?” And the boy looks and spreads his arms as wide as he can, and he says, “This big.” And the father says, “That’s how God is. The more we get closer to him, the more we spend time with him, the more we read his Word, the more we pray and we get to know him, we realise how big our God is.” 

So I want to encourage each one of you. We have a big God. If he can do it for me, a 10th-standard pass, and lift me up — many testimonies here of so many things that God is doing. Different things. God is not a man who’s a debtor to anyone. He’s a God who will do great things. I want to wish each one of you all the best. Don’t just be where you are. Get out of your comfort zone. Fly high, soar high. God bless. Thank you.

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