VERSATILE LEADERSHIP
Mr. Samuel’s optimism and visionary capacity set him apart from his peers. He is a versatile leader who can quickly adapt to different roles and responsibilities. The multi-talented individual is also a manufacturing engineer, serial entrepreneur, venture idea generator, inventor, and innovator. Born in 1947 in Tamil Nadu, India, Samuel was the youngest of his parents’ eight children. He was named after Prince Phillip, who married Queen Elizabeth the same year. His primary education was at a small Montessori school in Chennai, followed by high school at Madras Christian College High School. He then enrolled in Vivekananda College, followed by College of Engineering, Guindy, to pursue the BE (Mechanical) course.
Having worked for the government and private corporations in manufacturing, projects, development of new venture ideas, and foreign collaborations for 12 years, Mr. Samuel established a consultancy named Transprojects for identifying and setting up new venture ideas and foreign associations. He holds several US patents. Solar air conditioning (Australia), high vacuum technology (Liechtenstein; USA), coal beneficiation (USA), and optical lenses (USA) are some of the innovative ideas he generated for clients. He was also appointed by Unilever as an entrepreneur to handle a project which involved creating fresh flower essences with a small French company. Consequently, he founded Indfrag Ltd. in 1989 to extract the fragrance of flowers like jasmine and tuberose.
He switched to plant extracts for Health and Nutrition when producing floral components was no longer profitable. Following that, the business flourished, and he once again diversified it into cosmetic plant extracts. Under his able leadership, Indfrag has expanded exponentially over the years, offering a variety of plant extracts for the health and beauty industries. Mr. Samuel divided up his company into two parts in 2016. He sold the major part of the company for a high price, compensating all stockholders 126 times compared to 9.6 X for Sensex Index.
DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE IDEAS
Samuel has had a long-standing fascination for generating original business concepts. He wants to provide these suggestions for free to youngsters looking for business ideas. To that end, he has developed a website called Idearampage. His message to youngsters is that experiences in life can teach us valuable lessons, and we can always find a workaround for any circumstance.
A COMPASSIONATE LEADER
Mr. Samuel aims to assist underserved communities. He is a fervent supporter of women’s equality. His company has a girl power team with a long list of accomplishments to their credit. In 2017, he gave up his successful career as an entrepreneur to focus on giving back to society. His only son, Fabian, is currently in charge of the business, which has been doing even better due to his strong commitment to sustainability. Mr. Samuel still guides his business, but in his spare time, he works on charitable causes such as offering interest-free loans to small street vendors who are struggling due to high-interest rates, or converting used hotel soap into new ones and distributing it to the poor. Innovations and ideas never fail to motivate him, and he is always willing to provide his knowledge, expertise, and resources to people, businesses, and industries.
His relentless commitment has earned Indfrag numerous awards, including the Best EOU (MSME) for Food & Agro products for 2008-09’ and ‘Export Excellence Award 2003-04’ by MEPZ and “Best vendor of the year” bestowed by a sizeable American customer three years in a row.
