Jawad Araf Khan’s pathway to success
Jawad Araf Khan, a business student at North South University (NSU), has recently been crowned as the "Young Entrepreneur of the Year" at the Global Platform Icons of Asia Awards 2022. He won this recognition beating 1500 other nominations from across 40 Asian countries.
Jawad's journey as a young entrepreneur was supported by one of his school teachers who helped him as an early investor and provided him with the guidance and resources necessary for starting an online business. He began this journey with the small-scale business called "Badge Troopers" and later launched a personalised gift store called "Gift Theatre BD" which brought in bulk orders from various businesses, different art galleries, educational institutions, and even the Prime Minister's Office. He then expanded his entrepreneurial expertise to launch the event management company "Splendid Soirees".
After the pandemic, Jawad, along with two other friends, launched "TrustUs International", an export-based online business. They import various items from China, Thailand, Singapore, the UK and the US and generate over BDT 2 lacs in revenue each month by selling them locally.
Jawad secured his first international job through LinkedIn as he joined the content marketing team of an Australian HR company. He is presently working as the administrative and business development lead at a law firm and as the assistant manager of a tax consulting company. Both of these companies are based in the US.
Jawad's debut book Let's Start with an E emphasises on the skills a successful entrepreneur needs. In 2020, his book Bishonnotar Choddonam was launched at the Ekushey Book Fair which earned him the "Best Emerging Writer Award".
Jawad also ran a talk show on Facebook called "Let us Amaze with Araf" where he invited successful people from various fields from around the world to share their stories. Due to the show's popularity on social media, an American e-magazine named Your Success published an article about Jawad's journey as a young entrepreneur. This feature paved new avenues for him as he was approached by Never Personal Always Purpose LLC (NPAP), a California-based company for joining its team as an admin assistant. Jawad was also approached by a Spanish radio station to join as a podcaster and production manager.
At present, Jawad is working on his upcoming book, which he says will be on entrepreneurship and based on both his own experiences and those of other entrepreneurs he has gotten to know.