Achieving New Heights
Tania Wahab, founder of Karigar and winner of the SME Enterprise of the Year award. This inspiring woman who started off small and boldly exceeded expectations is a remarkable example to young businesswomen out there, Tunajina Islam writes.
Tania was just a young girl when she decided to clamber her way into the business industry of Bangladesh. Starting in 2005, the business sectors were highly male dominated and only a few young women entrepreneurs were engaged in this sector. It came as no surprise to Tania as being a women entrepreneur in Bangladesh, it is tough to go beyond the social norms. On the contrary, Tania was resilient against all odds and has become a highly successful entrepreneur owning Karigar. Karigar deals with manufacturing, trading and exporting leather products.
The leather sector in Bangladesh seemed very promising to Tania as there are a huge variety of products you can make out of them. Many handbags/other bags are imported into Bangladesh but Tania continuously drives to move the market. This whole dream began with a simple sewing machine, and one employee in a small leased shop, and a small budget of only 10,000 taka. She guided that employee as he made products by hand and they began operations in full swing. Since then she has reached unimaginable heights as she is the owner of one of the leading supplier of leather products. Karigar is now worth 1.60 Crore after 14 years of operations. They now have 20 full-time workers and 100 part-time representatives. Their impressive clientele consists of huge companies like British American Tobacco (BAT) Bangladesh, Grey Advertising Bangladesh, BASIC, Bank, Mutual Trust Bank, East West University, Chevron Bangladesh, Grameenphone, etc. Tania did business in many different countries one of which was UK, whom she exported to in 2008. Some of her greatest achievements were attaining these clients through immense hard work.
Throughout her career, Tania has had the pleasure of being able to motivate more than 10 young entrepreneurs when initiating this business. She has been mentoring many women to start this kind of business and many of them are successful entrepreneurs. As such, she has no doubt positively contributed to the growth of the leather and leather goods industry. Achieving this award, Tania hopes to empower more women entrepreneurs out there. She believes that passion is what drives you to be great and when working through the hardships of running a company, you have to remember that passion in order to succeed. Hurdles, negativity, blockage- come what may, but you need that level of determination to achieve new heights.
