Kama Maharaj named Master Entrepreneur of the Year

Maharaj was awarded “EY Master Entrepreneur of the Year” on Saturday night at the Champions of Business Induction Ceremony and Gala Cocktail Reception held at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain.

In the video presentation aired at the ceremony Maharaj recalled that his mother was a hairdresser and she had always expressed frustration that she was not able to get makeup for her clients who were darker women.

“I recognised an unfulfilled need in the local and global market,” he explained.

Sacha Cosmetics was started in 1979 in response to that need.

Maharaj said that he wanted to build a premium brand that could eventually be exported and that could compete with international brands. He explained that he decided to build slowly and one product at a time.

“A very long haul,” he added.

He said he wanted a product to solve a problem and came up with a water compounder that was a single shade and could work with any skin tone. He explained the buttercup setting powder became a transformational product for darker skin tones.

“Sacha helps women look better and feel better about themselves,” he said. He explained that they established 10 Sacha Image Centres for women to learn about makeup.

He said the company?s ability to distribute in 45 countries was through e-commerce and their relationship with international shipping company Amazon. He reported they are planning to move into the Latin American market and they already have a number of stores in Panama.

Maharaj has received a number of accolades over the years including in 2012 when the Export Development Forum named him one of the “Top 50 Exemplars and Icons” for the period 1962- 2012. Sasha also won Caribbean Exporter of the Year in 2014 and the company was the official cosmetics of the 1999 Miss Universe, the 2000 Miss USA Pageant, the 2014 Miss Panama Pageant and other international beauty events.

In his acceptance speech Maharaj thanked the organisers “for this tremendous acknowledgement for what we achieved at Sacha and what we continue to achieve”. He recalled that when they first started it was not easy as they had nothing to copy.

“It was like the black and white stage of television. We had no idea what colour would look like,” he said. He explained the basic philosophy was to develop a premium brand to compete with the imported premium brands on the local market and sell it at the same price.

“And if we could dominate these brands, global brands, in this market we knew we could dominate them in every other market,” he said.

He explained that when people hear that when you manufacture something local “people automatically think it is inferior”.

“And when my people would come to me and say ‘boss, our product look better but they buying the imported ones’ I would say to them ‘you know why they buying the imported ones? Because we are not good enough and we have to improve’,” he recalled.

He explained that he keeps a mirror on his work desk so if anything goes wrong he knows where the buck stops.

“And we continued to improve and develop not only products that worked well but products that were truly transformational. And the world is beginning to really appreciate,” he said.

He referenced the earlier video presentation which featured a clip from Australia’s “top blogger” Nikki Perkins who described the buttercup powder as a “gift from God”. He said her blog in which she featured the buttercup powder has received two million views to date.

“This is what is building global brand awareness,” he pointed out.

He reported that online sales is more than 50 per cent of their total export sales and he was very pleased with how their online sales have picked up and are growing.

He pointed out that the buttercup powder is the number one bestselling face powder on Amazon worldwide, which was met with loud applause from the audience.

He said stock is available in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom though he was not sure how the latter would be affected by Brexit. He reported that the next stop is Amazon India and Sacha is currently undergoing registration.

“And we hope by the end of this year to have Sacha in a market of a billion people all with different skin tones,” he said.

Maharaj thanked the organisers, his staff, family, the Almighty and “most of all the beautiful women of Trinidad and Tobago that gave us our start”.

As winner of EY Entrepreneur of the Year Maharaj is scheduled to represent this country next year in Monaco for the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year.