After being a successful executive and entrepreneur A S Madhavan is now overwhelmingly engaged in various social initiatives that would ensure a helping hand to underprivileged Adivasis with shelters, derelicts with cares for a better future and victims of calamities with
rehabilitation. Many helping hands and generous minds put together can stave off the agonies of many impoverished souls, he believes and works for it.
Hard work is the principle that A S Madhavan used to grapple with since his school days. He reflected this in his autobiography, Retrospection through various anecdotes of his early days in his native place and by recalling his toiling
early days in the British firm, Gordon Woodroffe. He dwelt on his awful office tasks in the autobiography and marked it unrecognised. The tiresome, yet done it tirelessly, the works of Gordon Woodroffe marked the first turning point in his life. Without any misgiving, he worked in the company as a sales executive and moved up the ladder through one and half decades. “That was a great opportunity to learn how to deal on different occasions,” he wrote. He was only 21 year at the time he joined the British supply-chain management company. That was four years ago he had left his native place Thirunavaya, in Malappuram district of Kerala, for a job.
Madhavan, with the legacy of a typical Kerala village upbringing, faced many challenges in the initial days of Mumbai life, like most of the migrants. Yet, he never used to resort to a shortcut, nor ever he adopted the wrong ways to be rich. Had he furnished a false report about the demand for the leather stock at Gordon Woodroffe’s warehouse as desired by Sreedharan, the General Manager in charge of the division, he could have been “rich” by ₹1 lakh in the days he used to earn a salary of ₹500 a month. That was just an instance of his integrity in work and personal life. In his place, anyone would have been tempted, but never had he been.
For nearly 15 years, he worked at a British firm. He was 15 days short of being eligible for a pension from the company that he never knew before he lost it. Though that was a shocking betrayal, which refused to decamp his mind for long, he took the experience as another lesson to learn in life. He never communicated his regret over the loss to anyone. What may lose now can be retrieved later through honesty, he believes and proves it subsequently. Loss is a part of life, he notes and remembers his ₹ 2 crore loss in the forward market in which his friend, a Chartered Accountant, felt guilty. Still, Madhavan excused the worried Chartered Accountant with an open heart much to the surprise of the latter, who subsequently began to engage himself in social works.
A S Madhavan was originally A Sethumadhavan. Sethu Ratnam, his senior at Gordon Woodroffe, didn’t want “Sethu” to be the prefix of the first name to falsely resemble relations.
For learning discipline, punctuality, time management, self-confidence and the nature that enabled him to find good friends, he owes greatly to Sethu Ratnam. It was Ratnam who helped Madhavan get the job in the company out of around 350 applicants possessing far better and highly admirable qualifications than Madhavan himself had. He could find Gordon Woodroffe as a school for learning and understanding the nuances of managing a large business establishment.
After leaving Gordon Woodroffe, he joined Panalpina, a multinational logistic company with a footprint on either side of the Atlantic. As a performer beyond the combined output of two of its then directors in India, he had to face some egoistic response from them. Using his wide contacts in the business circle and pleasant relationships, he began to generate solid business for the Swiss-based logistic conglomerate. After both the Indian directors left India, Madhavan was given India responsibility, which gave him enough freedom to work for better performance. It was during his service with Panalpina his father died, that too a day before the company directors’ annual visit.
After Panalpina, he started FLYJAC in 1990, which grew rapidly with 36 offices and over 2500 employees. The company, which has a turnover of ₹800 crores, has an overseas agents network in 60 countries. His friend, whom he calls Lalitbhai, enabled him to make an entrepreneur from being an executive. Its expansion saw more outfits with enviable infrastructures like container freight stations and cold storage warehouses emerging within the group. FLYJAC, with its huge infrastructure and technology base, was a platform and an umbrella for many smaller logistic companies. The company was later taken over by Hitachi Transport System in 2010. Still, Madhavan continued as its CEO, spending a quarter of a century in the highly successful enterprise that he built on his philosophy, endorsed for Japanese operational standards. Since 2010, FLYJAC has been an integral part of the Hitachi Transport System, Japan. Madhavan, who is now FLYJAC’s Chairman – Emeritus, was the founder director of JWC Logistics, JWR Logistics and JWL Cold Store.
The new generation often seems to have missed such sagacity that Madhavan has epitomised through the two ends of his career and innovative thinking, besides so many other fortes. While his father wanted him to be a mechanic with ownership of a workshop in his native place, he wanted to be a teacher at one point in time or look for a career that would guide villagers in farm-related vocations.
As he rightly mentions, “man proposes… God disposes.” The river flowed through the direction set for it by nature. An unprepared Mumbai visit and unintended for a job set him a new course.
Much has changed later though his inner heart for society remained unchanged even after he rose to the pinnacle of his career success. His father, Soolapani Warrier was a teacher, who later ran an Ayurvedic medical shop and sometimes also had shops selling fertilisers. Grandfather was also a teacher, under whose initiative, the village had a school that he later handed over to the government. Father donated land for building a primary health centre in the village. Naturally, Madhavan also inherited the DNA of compassion for society. That has always been an inspiration for him to be generous towards society, he points out in his autobiography while recalling the generosity and initiatives of his father and grandfather.
His village, where people had suffered abject poverty, made him see the miseries of people closely. He used to reflect the scenario through his writing of short stories in his early years. The scenario jostled in him an ardent spirit of working for the welfare of society, though he had many limitations at that time. Even after being overwhelmed by his success as an executive and later as an entrepreneur, his heart for the underprivileged, the quality of true motivator remained stronger.
He believes we need to be givers and takers for a harmonious co-existence, as the coexistence of the pancha bootha, the five elements that keep every life stable on the planet. His deeper understanding of this fundamental tenet and the culture of generosity that he inherited make him socially engaged. He understands the misery of the underprivileged segment. In a way, the rectitude keeps him vigilant of social calls from those who are deprived of their fundamental right as a civilised human being to have shelter, food, education, healthcare and, of course, education.
Often, some milestones are set coincidentally. The founding of the Warrier Foundation, on the principle of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy, a charitable institution is an instance of this. Once his daughter, Divya went for a Bharathanatyam performance at an old age home near Panvel, Raigad district, Maharashtra. After the performance, some of the visionimpaired inmates blessed and admired her for her performance. The incident touched her mind so deeply. She recapped what she saw at the old age home after reaching home in the presence of her father and appealed father to pay a visit to the premises. The old-age home, run by “Raman Mama”, wanted to extend its service scope with children’s activities under the banner of Janakalyan Sevashram. Madhavan agreed to co ordinate and, by becoming a director, he took initiative for building the Balmandir (school for children). Today the
Balmandir is not an ordinary school, but an establishment where children are imparted with superior quality education in true gurukul tradition. With financial constraints, when the Balmandir began to face uncertainties, the Warrier Foundation took the responsibilities of running it. On the other side, Madhavan stepped up the activities of the Warrier Foundation, where he is the managing trustee. The Foundation expanded its footprint of social works to its native place Thirunavaya also. Chairman of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan School, Thirunavaya, educating 1000 children. Besides Panvel and Thirunavaya in Malappuram, Balmandir has centres in Mazhuvannoor in Ernakulam and Anakkatty in Palakkad district of Kerala.
Through various centres, the Foundation provides free education, shelter, food and healthcare to more than 300 underprivileged children. Recognised as a resident Vedic school by Maharshi Sandipani Rashtriya Veda Vidya Pratishtan, Ujjain, under HRD Ministry of Government of India. Students are taught the Veda curriculum and CBSE syllabus under the National Institute of Open Schooling. The students completed Veda Bhooshan and SSC by the age of 14. Hitherto around 2000 students completed engineering, nursing, graduation, post graduation.
As a person already with a philanthropic mindset, Madhavan took it seriously. Warrier Foundation is engaged on a mission to build a sustainable community through various initiatives. Working with multiple communities, the Foundation lays greater emphasis on providing shelter, education and healthcare for children. In 2018, he founded Kaivalya Enterprises, a social initiative, which, in association with other NGOs, undertook the first project to build 5000 houses for Adivasis and underprivileged people in tribal areas as well as for flood victims in Kerala. More than 1000 underprivileged families have already sent their requests for homes. By March 2025, it would be positioned to deliver more than 500 homes, if situations are normal.
Madhavan was earlier Federation President of Giants International, the largest NGO based with 400 groups constituting one lakh members. He is also the founder member of the World Confederation of Warriers, an organisation committed to social activities, education and health care. He is a recipient of many awards and recognitions for social projects. Some of them include recognition by Sri Sri Ravishankar of Art of Living, Sai Vishishta Seva Award by Sai Sanjivani Charitable Trust, T.N. Sheshan Award, Best President Award by Giants International, etc.
Over the years the Foundation enabled thousands of people to gain their privilege as human beings in one or another way, including many children who could see the light of education and a better future. Social activities on a massive scale cover many areas.
The activities include eye check-up camps with free specs for more than two lakh students in over 400 schools, blood donation camps for which the Red Cross Society honoured it for collecting a maximum number of bottles of blood, disaster relief by constructing a community hall cum health centre at Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu for Tsunami victims, houses for flood victims, etc.
One of the best ways to make a person self-reliant and thereby trimming social setbacks is to enable the young people with the right skills so that he or she can find the wherewithal to meet both ends. Keeping this in mind, Madhavan has taken initiatives with a mission called a job for the jobless through a Skill Development Course under DDUGKY, a central government project.
This project gives skill development training to find a suitable job. Ultimately, that makes the true Atma Nirbhar Bharat a reality, he believes