Kameel Khan doesn’t run a business, he raises a family.
Starting off with only $600, Khan grew his business – Kamri Investments – from a distributor of various products to a glass distributor to an importer, and now to the point where it exports tempered glass to six countries and is expanding. It markets its products under Kamri Glass with a showroom in San Fernando and the factory at the Point Lisas Industrial Estate.
This year Khan was awarded the breakthrough exporter of the year at the TT Chamber of Industry and Commerce’s Champions of Business Awards in November. Khan told Business Day his family and his Muslim faith were the keys that not just made his business a success, but his family – his relatives, associates and employees who have toiled with him for years – a success as well.
Khan said he started his business in 2000, the year he married his wife, Rizwana. The name of the business was also a marriage of their two names.
“Kameel and Rizwana make up the name of the company. That is how we became Kamri,” he said. “That unity, together with God, is where everything came from.”
Khan said he and his wife built their business while working on starting a life together and studying. Khan studied at Costaatt, while Rizwana studied accounting.
Khan said even before they started their business they used their faith and their family as a means to keep them grounded.
“My father died six months before I got married, and I didn’t have any big inheritance to play with. There were times when we couldn’t put food on the table.
"When I got married, my wife and I wanted to do different things. I said, 'Let’s start to practise our religion better.' That gave us the room so that we would not have been going to try to live a lavish life – partying and all these things. It helped us focus.
“We were able to start building the business by becoming more focused on our marriage, religion and what we wanted to achieve.”
Khan started with distributing stretch wrap, which is used for sealing packages to pallets and in some cases for plumbing. Over the following six years they looked for a product to specialise in. He said at one time they began bringing in aluminium sheets for signs.
“We were looking for a little spot. Our products were making money, but we were looking for a niche. I realised that if I continued selling these smaller products, I would always be a young boy. I had to go out there and position myself.”
Khan realised he wanted to get into a market with high-value products such as glass, and started buying and reselling glass from local companies. But one year, he was unable to meet an order placed by a key customer coming out of a local bank, because the company he bought the glass from had closed down.
“I took the money from the people not knowing that they couldn’t finish the job. They didn’t tell me they would not be able to do it. I went to the place and the gates were closed. There was a sign that said, 'Sale in J
