Shri Arvind Parikh was born in 1927 and schooled in Ahmedabad.
      In 1944 he moved to Bombay (Mumbai) to study in college and learn Indian Classical music on the Sitar from Ustad Vilayat Khan, India’s greatest exponent of the sitar.
      He later graduated with B.A. Honors (Economics) from Elphinstone College in 1948.
      He then began a career at Lee & Muirhead (LM) freight forwarders in 1948, a company that his father had acquired from its British owners.

Journey To Greatness

      “Business is my hobby, and music is my passion,” said India’s grand transportation pioneer Shri Arvind Parikh, who is celebrating 90 years of age in 2017.

Partnerships From The Get Go

      As soon as he entered freight forwarding in 1948, Parikh took the initiative to educate himself in the ways of world transportation and commerce, traveling around the globe, learning modern transportation business concepts, and bringing them to India.
       “I looked at the relatively poor standard of the services of the freight forwarding industry and realized right away that building a partnership network of freight forwarding agents was the path to worldwide representation for Lemuir’s business,” Parikh recalled.
      “Our agent partners spanned all continents, including the erstwhile Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China,” he said.

Solid Partners, Great Expectations

      Important partners included Air Express International (AEI), DB Schenker, Panalpina, Gondrand, Rhenus, Jacky Maeder, Nippon Express, Deugro, Sojuzvneshtrans, Sinotrans, etc., which were drawn to the young entrepreneur as the Indian subcontinent opened to the world and modern times.
      Starting with a staff of just 8 people in a single office, Parikh, supported by his son, Snehal Parikh, and team, built LM into a national organization with 50 offices in 35 cities and 1,300 staff providing integrated, comprehensive logistics services.
      In addition to serving international air and ocean freight, providing customs brokerage services warehousing & distribution, and value-added services, LM became one of the leading Project Cargo logistics service providers in India.

The DHL Partnership

      In 2003 Parikh merged LM’s General Cargo business into “DHL Lemuir Logistics Pvt. Ltd,” in a highly successful JV with DHL Logistics and became its Chairman.
       DHL Lemuir Logistics grew progressively into the largest Indian forwarder with 6,000 professionals. DHL Lemuir also became the largest CHB in India, the largest airfreight forwarder, a formidable ocean freight forwarder, and the most successful supply chain services provider in warehousing and distribution.
      Lemuir exited the JV in 2012.

Lifetime of Service

International Leadership

      Shri Arvind Parikh served as Vice Chairman of the Air Transport Committee, ICC Paris.
      At home he founded the Intermodal Club to promote the concept of multi-modalism in India.
      This culminated into the formation of the Association of Multimodal Transport Operators in India, the AMTOI, where he served as Hon. Secretary.

FIATA Went Global

      Mr. Parikh was elected President of FIATA as the first ever non-European to serve in that position.
      Mr. Parikh was responsible for ensuring that FIATA expanded its focus beyond Europe to include the issues related to the emerging Asia Pacific Region.

Introduction of Global Transportation Concepts

      The development of International air and ocean consolidation, early containerization, international courier services, and multimodal transport, which he introduced into LM, were among other important firsts he pioneered for India.
      He also participated in & chaired innumerable government and industry bodies, serving over the years on scores of committees and always working on behalf of promoting the freight and logistics industry in India.

Listen To The Music

      At 90, Shri Arvind Parikh is among a tiny number of truly visionary doyens produced by the global logistics industry.
      But there is more!
      Pandit Arvind Parikh is also the senior-most disciple of Ustad Vilayat Khan, and in 2017 is a top ranking sitar player of India who has performed sitar recitals all over the world for the last 70 years.
      He is a renowned musicologist, teacher, and cultural ambassador, and has authored several books on Indian Music.
      Parikh headed the Music Forum & Indian Musicological Society and continues to be a Trustee of ITC’s Sangeet Research Academy (SRA).
      In 2003 he received an Award of Sangeet Natak Akademi, the government’s premier cultural organization, at the hands of the President of India. Recently he earned the highest award of the Akademi called Fellowship – Akademi Ratna. He has received several other prestigious awards. He also received the Guru of the Year Award from the governor of the state. No wonder, as Parikh has tutored over 100 students, over half of which are still under his training.
      As winter 2017-18 approaches, Shri Arvind Parikh continues playing his music and serving as Chairman of Lemuir Group, a gathering of transportation enterprises led by a Parikh family member in every top position.
      We are honored to celebrate the career and life well lived of this great renaissance man of India.
      His words and his music (shared here) lift all of us.
Geoffrey