By Jordan French
Running a business in Nepal is truly for the adventurous of heart. Entrepreneurs must contend with government changes and shifting policies, a lack of clarity around taxes and regulations, infrastructure limitations, with poor connectivity outside of major cities, and natural disasters.
Yet Vishal Group, one of the leading Nepalese conglomerates, with business in distribution, manufacturing, financial services, hospitality, and agriculture — to name a few sectors — has managed to thrive in all circumstances to the benefit of Nepal, its economy and society. Today, the group employs 21,000 people across diverse sectors and has a significant presence not only in the mountain nation but across Asia and now Africa, where it has distribution channels that reach billions combined.
The logistical brainchild behind these operational achievements is Arpit Agrawal, an executive director at the Vishap Group, as well as the vice president of the Vishal Group Foundation, which looks to support transformational and sustainable programs that impact Nepalese society.
The fourth generation of the Agrawal family to be involved in the group, Arpit has cut out a role as a modernizer, helping to streamline the distribution of fast-moving consumer goods not just in Nepal but in countries throughout the region, with a focus on emerging new Asian markets.
“Throughout my career, I have worked extensively with global consumer companies to help them establish scalable commercial infrastructure in high-growth emerging economies,” says Agrawal.
This work has involved designing localized route-to-market strategies, optimizing supply chain networks, and building partnerships that allow multinational brands to operate efficiently in fragmented retail and regulatory environments. To achieve all that, he relies on new technology.
“I am particularly interested in how digital transformation and financial infrastructure evolution can help to accelerate consumer market development in frontier economies,” says Agrawal.
Agrawal’s family has long been interested in developing business in Nepal and has been involved in doing so since the 1930s. It opened a textile business in 1949 in Dharan, the country’s third largest city that eventually developed into the Vishal Group. Today, the group has interests in steel and battery manufacturing, banking, insurance, real estate, education and more. It is led by seasoned family members, such as Jagdish Prasad Agrawal, who took over the business from its original founders. It is Arpit who has taken the reins in regards to technology.
According to Agrawal, early exposure to entrepreneurship within his family got him started on his professional journey and has made him who he is. When the older Agrawals would gather around the table, business was usually on the menu. “Growing up, I observed business strategy discussions, I watched them make market expansion decisions and evaluate risks,” he recalls. “So from a young age, this played an important role in shaping my interest in enterprise building and global business development.”
That interest led him to pursue an education in the US, where he studied at Florida Southern College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Hult International Business School. He has relied on these experiences as he began building scalable growth platforms, expanding international partnerships, and helping transform the Vishal Group’s distribution footprint across emerging markets.
For Agrawal, using technology to modernize distribution systems has been key in improving Vishal Group’s performance across all of its sectors. During his tenure, he has been able to put the systems in place to make Vishal Group’s brands present in more than 30 countries. This has involved some minor miracles as he works to get distribution set up in underserved markets, which suffer at times from the same obstacles that can impede operations at home in Nepal.
“These initiatives have helped global partners build structured commercial platforms that balance growth potential with operational resilience in developing economies,” says Agrawal.
His work sits at the convergence of financial, digital, and retail infrastructure, and he is particularly focused on building adaptive commercial models that can withstand any test. He must also convince the firm’s international partners that their investments will someday pay off.
“I believe that emerging markets will play a central role in shaping the next phase of global consumer and commerce growth,” says Agrawal. “These regions are experiencing rapid urbanization, demographic expansion, and digital adoption, creating opportunities for new commercial infrastructure models.”
Given all of his experience he is attempting to tap into and cultivate these markets, while staying true to the altruistic values of the Vishal Group and focusing on what he called “operational empathy.”
“Throughout my career, my guiding philosophy has been to focus on long-term value creation,” says Agrawal. “At Vishal Group, I’ve worked to achieve that through partnership-driven growth and localized market understanding,” he says. “And I am particularly inspired by business strategies that successfully combine global scale with operational resilience and cultural sensitivity.”
