Indian Navy Hero of 26/11 turns entrepreneur and builds a Rs 25 crore turnover company

 

Hailing from an unnamed village in Haryana, Ashing Jaguar, 38, completed his medical studies at the Armed Forces Medical College (AFC) in Pune and attained the rank of Surgeon Lieutenant Commander in the Indian Navy before return to civilian life and become an entrepreneur.

About six years ago, he founded Promo, a cloud supply chain company with just five employees. Today, the business employs 150 people and has a turnover of Rs 25 crore. Ashing's story is that of a boy who studied in a village school until fifth grade, then became a naval doctor, then a McKinsey consultant and finally a successful entrepreneur.

"I had suffered a knee injury in a volleyball game while playing for my varsity team in a zonal competition," Ashing says. He had surgery on the same knee twice and ruined his chances of promotion in the navy. So he decided to resign. While in the Navy, he played a role in counter-terrorism operations during the 26/11 attack on Mumbai. As the medical officer in charge of the Clara Naval Helicopter Base, Ashing was responsible for the evacuation of casualties. It was attributed to the TAJ and Oberon hotels, which bore the brunt of the terror attack. Becoming a doctor was his dream, and at that time he felt vindicated.

After completing class 12, he had taken coaching courses in Delhi to prepare for the medical entrance exams. Says Ashing, who also passed the National Defense Academy (NDA) exams but chose to join the AFC instead. “I decided to join the AFC as a medical cadet because I wanted to become a doctor and serve the country,” he says. It was a four and a half year course. I got a good undergraduate degree. I joined the navy in early 2006 and was commissioned as a surgeon second lieutenant. My first assignment was in Visakhapatnam. I served in the navy for six and a half years. Besides 11/26, he was involved in setting up a dedicated 20-bed hospital in Campbell Bay in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands during the 2007 Tsunami Rehabilitation Project.

He was also awarded the President's Sienna Sea Medal for his work in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. At the age of 28, Ashing left the Navy and moved to Guru gram. He took the GMAT exams and passed. He then studied MBA at Indian School of Business, Moral Campus in Punjab in 2012. “It was the best year of my life and I did very well in it academically,” he says. "I got job offers from companies like Amazon, Phillips and many others. But I joined McKinsey as a strategic consultant. I was seconded to Delhi but traveled across the world as part of my job. He spent about 18 months with the company and during the period he also went to Paris.

He says the seniors were collaborative, and he learned a lot in the company.“The experience I had at McKinsey motivated me to start my own business. I wanted to do something with myself and make it big,” says Ashvini. He resigned from McKinsey and started Prozo in January 2015 investing Rs 1 crore. Prozo is an "eCommerce Enabler and Accelerator" for SMBs, D2C Brands and Enterprises. It offers integrated supply chain technology, a pan-India warehouse and fulfillment network, and plug-and-play services for e-commerce sellers across more than 20 online platforms including Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa and Myntra. “Prozo offers a network of omnichannel fulfillment centers across India to serve brands on a pay-as-you-go basis to enable 12-day delivery for end customers,” says Ashvini. 

The company had a turnover of Rs 2.6 crore in the first year (in the financial year 201516). Born in Bhurawas village in Jhajjar district of Haryana, Ashvini, he is the youngest of four brothers. Her father was a young army officer, while her mother was a teacher at a public school in the village. Ashvini began her studies in a village school before joining a boarding school in Sonipat, a small town about 56 km from her village. He studied from fifth to eighth grade in this school. “I was a brilliant student and my parents felt that boarding school was a better place to study. It was perfect for me and made me more disciplined,” says Ashvini, taking a trip down memory lane. Later, he joined a school in Charkhi Dadri, another small town in Haryana, for a few years. He stayed with his grandmother with his third sister and studied at school. The other two older sisters had already married by then.

He studied grades 11 and 12 at a school in Rohtak, then left for Delhi, where he spent a year preparing for the medical entrance exam. He lived up to his family's expectations by passing the NDA and AFMC exams. "It was a proud moment for my parents," says Ashvini, whose wife is a speech therapist

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