Manoj Bhargava
Manoj Bhargava born in 1953.his an entrepreneur,
philanthropist, and founder as well as CEO of 5-hour energy , 5-hour
Energy is a flavored "energy shot" brand made by Living Essentials in Wabash, Indiana, whose parent firm is Innovation Ventures
in Farmington
Hills, Michigan.The Company was
started and continues to be headed by CEO Manoj Bhargava, one of America's richest Indians. It is sold
in 1.93 -oz (57 mL) containers. Launched in 2004, 5-Hour Energy was
first distributed across the United States of America by independent
wagon-jobbers.The company states that the product is not approved by the U.S Food and Drug
Administration, is vegetarian and certified Kosher, and contains no sugar or herbal stimulantsthe
company which markets the energy shot. He was born in Lucknow. Lucknow is
the capital city of the state of uttar pradesh ,india.and moved to the
United States in 1967 at the age of 14. Crain's Detroit Business awarded Bhargava
its "Newsmaker of the Year 2011". and he was named Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year for 2012.Ernst & Young (trading
as EY) is a multinational professional service firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the "Big Four" audit firmsand is the third largest professional services firm in the
world by aggregated revenue in 2014, afterPwC and Deloitte.
The organization
operates as a network of member firms which are separate legal entities in
individual countries. It has 212,000 employees in over 700 offices around 150
countries in the world. It provides assurance (including financial audit), tax, consulting andadvisory services to companiesIn
2012 Forbes reported his net worth to be around $4 billion,
possibly making him the wealthiest indian in america.
Early life
Bhargava graduated
from The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, in 1972. The Hill School is a highly
selective preparatory boarding school for boys and girls located in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, about 35 miles
northwest of Philadelphia.
The Hill is part of an organization
known as the Ten Schools Admissions Organization (TSAO).This
organization was founded more than forty years ago on the basis of a number of
common goals and traditions. Member schools include The Hill School,Choate
Rosemary Hall, Deerfield Academy, The Lawrenceville School, The
Taft School, The Hotchkiss School, St. Paul's School,Loomis
Chaffee, Phillips Exeter Academy, and Phillips Academy Andover. The
Hill is also accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and
Schools.
As of May 2014, The
Hill's endowment was
approximately $153 million.He went on to attend Princeton University for one year.Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 inElizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton was the fourth chartered
institution of higher education in the Thirteen Colonies[ and thus one of the nine Colonial Colleges established before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, then to the current site nine
years later, where it was renamed Princeton University in 1896.
Princeton provides undergraduate and
graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural
sciences, and engineering.It offers professional degrees through
the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs,
the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Architecture
and the Bendheim Center for Finance. The University has ties with
the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary, and
the Westminster Choir College of Rider University.Princeton has
the largestendowment per student in the United States.
The University has
graduated many notable alumni. It has been associated with 39 Nobel laureates, 17 National Medal of Sciencewinners, the
most Abel Prize winners
and Fields
Medalists of any university (four and eight,
respectively), nine Turing Award laureates,
five National Humanities Medal recipients and
204 Rhodes
Scholars. Two U.S. Presidents, 12 U.S. Supreme
Court Justices (three of whom currently serve on the court), and numerous
living billionaires and foreign heads of state are all counted among
Princeton's alumni.Princeton has also graduated many prominent members of
the U.S.
Congress and the U.S. Cabinet, including eight Secretaries of State, three
Secretaries of Defense, and two of the past four Chairs of the Federal Reserve After that, he went back to India, where he lived in an ashram as a monk for 12 years.
Early in his life, Bhargava worked at
a variety of jobs, including construction laborer, construction cleaning
contractor, accounting clerk, taxi driver, printing press operator and business
manager.He returned to the United States permanently in the early 1990s and
took over his family’s plastics company, Prime PVC Inc., later called Prime
Conduit, which he grew to $20 million in sales and then sold to a private
equity firm in 2007.
Afterwards he started a consumer
products company, Living Essentials.In 2004, the company developed the product
"5-Hour Energy", which has become a well-known brand in
the energy drink market. Bhargava's stake in Living Essentials
is valued at over $3 billion.
His businesses include Living
Essentials (maker of 5-Hour Energy), Senterra Water (desalination and
water purification), ETC Capital (an investment company), Oakland Energy &
Water Ventures (an investment company), Stage 2 Innovations(products
for fuel efficiency that invests in Michigan tech),MicroDose Life
Sciences (medical devices),and US Rail (railroad and freight terminal
operations).
5-Hour Energy was introduced to
the marketplace in 2004. Retail sales grew to over $1 billion by 2011. Forbes reports
that the research firm Symphony IRI believes 5-Hour to hold 90% of the energy
shot market. Bhargava's innovation was creating a blend
of vitamins and amino acids that was safe and effective for
those who felt tired. His other innovation included the 2 oz. packaging, pointing
out that people who needed energy were not necessarily also thirsty enough for
an 8-ounce drink. The smaller-size packaging allowed retailers to place the
product near checkout counters and at easy point-of-sale locations.
The product contains functional nutrients, such
as B vitamins and amino acids. Production and distribution are
handled inside the company itself, in a million-square-foot facility located
in Wabash, Indiana.
Bhargava's foundations include
Knowledge Medical Charitable Trust and Rural India Charitable Trust. The
charities have funded medical research in the United States and over 400
charities in India.Two of the major initiatives are hospitals for the poor and
education for disadvantaged women in rural areas.
The Hans Foundation is solely
supported by the Rural India Charitable Trust, and in five years it has given
300 crore rupee (approximately $48.1 million U.S.). In November 2014, Bhargava
committed 500 crore rupee (approximately $80.2 million) to develop villages in
Uttarakhand, India.In September 2012, Bhargava joined The Giving Pledge.
He has pledged 90% of his wealth to charity, with an emphasis on a common sense
approach to philanthropy. Instead of simply giving money, Bhargava believes
that personal involvement is necessary. Bhargava was interviewed on the
ABC News show Nightline in September 2012.
The Center for Public
Integrity dubbed him the "political kingmaker nobody
knows" after finding out that "he makes donations through several of
his more than 70 limited liability companies". Michigan politicians
have said that Bhargava has never tried to influence a piece of legislation nor
has he asked for anything in return for the donations.
Companies affiliated with 5-hour
Energy—mainly ETC Capital—have "given at least $5.3 million to help elect
state-level candidates since 2009". Political donations by companies with
5-hour Energy affiliations increased, while 33 states announced that they would
investigate the company. They donated more than $1.2 million to state
attorneys general and their political campaigns. In 2014 ETC Capital
donated $2.5 million to the Republican Governors Association, which seeks
to elect Republican governors, but Bhargava has also given more than
$310,000 to Democrats.
A New York Times article
that highlighted 5-hour Energy's lobbying to influence states attorneys general
cited a press release put out by 5-hour Energy where Bhargava used the word
"ransom" to describe the attorneys general soliciting the company for
money. In the statement, Bhargava says that he's not going to take money he's
pledged to the poor and give it to the attorney general.
