By SHAILESH SOLANKI
FOR someone who firmly believes that his success is down to luck, it was perhaps the most inauspicious of beginnings.
In 1985, a 28-year-old jobless Rumi Verjee had just about gathered enough funds for a flight to Houston, Texas, where the founder of the Domino’s pizza chain, Tom Monaghan, was speaking.
After numerous attempts to meet Monaghan had failed to garner any response, Verjee took a flight to Texas armed with a presentation packed with graphs and pages of reasoning to persuade the pizza boss to sell him the British franchise rights.
The former investment banker and Cambridge law graduate had no track record in the food business, so the task before him would have been a tall order for even the most persuasive of businessmen. But Verjee had a passion and determination that was to be the hallmark of his rise to become one of Britain’s most successful businessmen.
Yet, it all could so easily have been different. After landing in Houston on a sweltering day, Verjee realized his bags had been stolen. All his plans were gone – or up in the
air (possibly, quite literally). He decided to attend the conference, but realised a more radical course was necessary.
“Monaghan did this very rousing speech to about 2,000 people. When he left the stage, something drove me. I just went through the crowd and told him: “I have been trying to meet you but your people won’t let me. I want the (Domino’s franchise) rights to the UK.
“There were lot of press and other people around. I still remember it – he could not but help talk to me,” he says.
It was a massive breakthrough and Verjee acquired the rights to start the first Domino’s Pizza outlet in the UK.
Starting in Luton, he and two other US partners built the business, creating 12 outlets before franchising it out to around 50 – today there are some 700 outlets in Britain.
In 1989, Verjee sold the franchise (for a publicly undisclosed sum) and started to create his other businesses, which today include property, investments and Thomas Goode, the high end Mayfair housewares store which holds two royal warrants.
For a while, he also co-owned Watford Football Club alongside his friend, Sir Elton John, who in a second spell at the club, reappointed previous manager Graham Taylor.
They saw the club rise from the old third division (the last tier of professional English football) and into the Premier League.
Now 55, the entrepreneur is channelling 60 per cent of his time to charitable activities, while one of his nephews helps to run his businesses. He has set up his own foundation, the Rumi Foundation and has supported others such as the Clinton Foundation and Mosaic, which teams up high-flying achievers with young people from disadvantaged communities.
It is clear that helping young people is something he enjoys and finds hugely rewarding, especially when they exhibit a passion for something. Passion and enjoyment, he explains, are important components for success in business and other parts of life too.
“If you have passion, if you do what you are passionate about, you will succeed,” he says.
“I have been fortunate to witness sport close-up, where I saw that it was skill, yes, but ultimately it was passion that took us from the third division to the Premier League.”
Motivated partly by his father, who helped to build the first multi-denominational schools in East Africa, Verjee, an Ismaili Muslim whose family originally hailed from Diu in India, set up his own foundation to broaden education access and improve young people’s prospects.
He believes people have opportunities but don’t always get a chance to exploit them.
“People do have opportunity, what we need to do is get people to see their opportunity and be able to seize it. Many just don’t have or never have had that chance and what Mosaic does is take members from very deprived communities and give them hope, dignity and an ear, just to listen to them.
“Often that’s all you need – and I genuinely believe it’s not a one-way street.”
He says he gets tenfold what he gives his mentees. “The satisfaction I get is huge.”
When Verjee talks about Yahaya Kiyingi, a young black Ugandan refugee who grew up in poverty in London’s Tottenham area and is now entering the first rungs of politics, it is obvious what excites the entrepreneur- philanthropist.
“He (Kiyingi) is from a very poor background but models himself as the next Barack Obama. I love his passion, the ambition, the self-belief. I hope with my mentoring that I can bring these passions to the fore and provide a platform and opportunity.”
Last May, Verjee hosted a lunch for former US president Bill Clinton, whose foundation he supports, at his Thomas Goode store.
“It was important some Mosaic mentees were there.
“Yahaya was there, he’s got a great picture and just a two minutes exchange with Clinton.
Like Clinton’s own meeting with Kennedy, it may well have really changed his life.”
Kiyingi, who is in his 20s, has been selected as the Liberal Democrats’ candidate in Hampstead and Kilburn, where there was a rare but real tussle between the three main parties in 2010, with just 1,000 votes separating them.
There’s no doubt that Verjee’s own childhood experience of being displaced from Uganda, his family’s experience of pre-Independence prejudice and their loss of status and wealth there have given him an empathy with those who don’t have much.
“We lost 95 per cent of our wealth. While it was very traumatic, in retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. To be brought up in that environment, then to lose everything and to start with nothing, I see that as a benefit – in hindsight.”
He said it drove him to achieve what his parents had. “My aspirations were to succeed as my parents had in East Africa, despite the odds. Looking back on it, that was the real driving force.”
High-flying inspiration
STARTED five years ago, Mosaic is a charity dedicated to teaming young people from deprived communities with high-flying mentors who can help them negotiate life’s challenges.
Many of Mosaic’s mentors are hugely successful, well-known and leaders in their field and then there are others who want to give something back having established themselves.
Founded by Prince Charles, and supported by Princess Badiya bint El Hassan of Jordan as its founder chairperson, the charity can call upon not only Rumi Verjee but shadow justice secretary, Sadiq Khan MP; comedian and writer David Baddiel; and BBC newsreaders Riz Lateef and Asad Ahmad, among some 700 others.
Verjee, BBC news anchor Mishal Husain, Ahmad and businesswoman Pinky Lilani were announced as Mosaic ambassadors last year.
Mosaic aims to inspire youngsters to achieve their full potential, as well as provide support and advice from a mentor, who has usually faced their own challenges on the road to success.
Its goal is to “lift the aspirations of young people and close the gap between those aspirations and their attainment”.
The mission statement adds: “Mosaic boosts their own confidence, self-efficacy and long-term employability.”
Over the last year, the charity helped around 2,000 youngsters at schools and also works with young offenders.
Mosaic is keen to hear from possible new mentors.
The charity is part of the Business in the Community, which helps companies perform their corporate social responsibility role and has over 850 firms linked to it, from both home and abroad.
* For more about Mosiac and its work, see www.mosaicnetwork.co.uk
