Profile - Arshad Chaudhry: Entrepreneur who is beating the odds... in business and in life

Over the years he has contributed a huge amount to the Leeds business community in a number of organisations. He is currently chairman and founder of the Asian Business Development Network, now known as ABDN; a director and senior consultant of the Huque Chaudhry Associates (HCA) group of accountancy practices in Leeds; and director of Business Link Yorkshire. Does he ever feel like he’s doing too much?

“I enjoy that because what I really like is to inspire people into enterprise,” he says. “The main thing that keeps me going is getting people to believe in themselves that they can beat any odds.”

Beating the odds has remained a constant theme for Chaudhry. Eleven years ago he was diagnosed with myeloma, a cancer that affects plasma cells in the bone marrow. The doctors told him he had three years to live, yet he is now one of the longest surviving patients with the disease.

“I told them, the doctors don’t write my destiny, God does,” he says. Last year he had a relapse and doctors gave him three months to live. He has undergone chemotherapy every day for the last four months. “My doctor knows I’m going to carry on,” he says.

It’s not the first time Chaudhry, 60, and his family have been struck by a cancer. His eldest son died of a brain tumour when he was just seven years old. He has three other children – two daughters and a son.

“I’ve had a pretty tough time but I think in a way it has completely moulded my life and I’ve enjoyed the journey by passing on to people the things I have learned by fighting, by beating the odds,” he says.

Beating the odds is also something Chaudhry had to do when he moved to England from Pakistan at the age of 20.

The son of an army colonel, Chaudhry had a comfortable upbringing in Lahore, Pakistan with his three older brothers. He went to boarding school and later studied economics at Punjab University in Lahore.

After graduating, his brother invited him to move to England and join him in Leeds where he was working as a chartered accountant. However, Chaudhry wasn’t prepared for the reception he received from members of the local community.

“It was the most harrowing experience I have ever had, initially,” he says. “I never expected that the colour of my skin would make me any different to anyone else.”

Things were so bad in the first few years that he almost went back to Pakistan. “The only thing that made me stay here was the fact that I didn’t want to go back without having done anything, having failed,” he says.

He applied to join the Pakistan Army as an escape route, but was rejected for being three months above the age limit, so he decided to stay in Leeds. “In the end, no regrets and, in fact, I’m absolutely delighted I stayed,” he says.

Chaudhry qualified as an accountant at Leeds University and worked at a firm in Dewsbury before joining the Burton Group, now Arcadia, as group internal auditor.

He left to set up his own practice. “I didn’t look back. I started creating businesses. I’m the kind of person who gets bored with things very quickly and accountancy is not the most exciting of professions. That was the bread and butter but then I decided to do things that excited me so I started IT businesses. I set up a call centre, and I went on trade delegations. I wanted to do things that would excite me beyond my profession.”

He adds: “I made a lot of mistakes, which I think is part of the fun of being in business.”

His biggest mistake, he says, was investing in an internet company during the dotcom boom in 2001 and losing £1m. “Mistakes are a learning experience,” he says.

Arguably his biggest success was launching ABDN in 1997 with one simple aim – to help expand small Asian enterprises.

The group, which started off supporting a handful of businesses in West Yorkshire, now provides access to training and support services for 800 ethnic-minority businesses on a local and national scale.

As the small Asian enterprises have expanded, ABDN has found itself developing into a different kind of organisation, widening its net to help ethnic minority businesses across the board.

The organisation now has bases in South Yorkshire and the North West. “The idea is to create a national network to support businesses and lobby for businesses, closely working with other organisations like the Chambers of Commerce,” he says.

Although he is a director of business support organisation Business Link, which is being wound down, he is critical of its achievements. “Business Link did fulfill a purpose, which worked for a period of time but...maybe issues of funding and the fact that the bureaucracy was tough there, maybe it didn’t achieve as much as it should have done,” he says.

He remains concerned about financial support for small businesses. “(The Government) has removed all business support completely and that has caused a problem. These small businesses could have helped Britain come out of the economic malaise that we have.”

Access to finance is particularly acute in Asian enterprises. “The problem we have with Asian businesses is that they were not very good at keeping proper records and as the banks have tightened their criteria, these businesses have fallen out of the loop altogether. The banks just aren’t lending to them,” he says.

One of the options ABDN is promoting to its members is franchising. “Franchising is a good option because you are using a name and a brand to run your business,” Chaudhry says. “You have to pay a lot of money up front but at least it’s safer because you’re not having to do your own work at getting your business up.”

Chaudhry is sceptical about the new Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). “The problem is you’ve got 17 people on the board, half of whom are business people and the rest are public sector. It’s very difficult to mesh that together and come up with viable business support, especially when you have no money.”

He remains ambitious about what he wants to achieve, particularly bringing communities together. He is currently working with Mike Firth, chairman of the Yorkshire International Business Convention, to organise the first event at Leeds Arena, which opens next year.

“Asian businesses have a lot of entrepreneurial flair but they lack the discipline. Whereas indigenous businesses are very disciplined but they don’t have flair.

“If they work together they can achieve fantastic results,” he says.

Arshad Chaudhry Factfile

Title: Chairman of Asian Business Development Network

Date of birth: April 23, 1951

Education: Abbottabad Public School, Pakistan; Punjab University (economics); Leeds University (accountancy)

First job: Trainee accountant at Dawson Brown & Co in Dewsbury

Favourite song: The Look of Love, by Madonna

Car driven: Jaguar

Favourite film: The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

Favourite holiday destination: Langkawi in Malaysia

Last book read: The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

What I am most proud of: Inspiring young people