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SURYA CELEBRATES 40 YEARS
SATYA TIWARI: "THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING"
 CEO Satya Tiwari projects Surya's future as a billion-dollar lifestyle brand as the he and the company celebrate their 40th birthdays.
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CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- Surya is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2016. This may come as a surprise to more than a few, since the company is so closely associated with its 40-year-old CEO Satya Tiwari.
Tiwari joined Surya in 2004, and he quickly set the course to turn his family's business into one of today's fastest-growing and most-talked about home furnishings companies.
In this exclusive interview with RugNews.com, Tiwari reveals how he guided Surya's strategy to become a lifestyle brand, and why he thinks his company will eventually be a billion-dollar entity.
With a 40-year legacy, do you feel a sense of responsibility to keep Surya moving forward for your family and the next generation?
I think so. Our goal always has been to build this company with strong foundations, and to have it be here for many, many generations.
I'm the second generation, and they say that a lot of businesses don't survive second or third generations. You have to build it right to get to the next level, so we definitely want to make sure the foundation is strong.
Do I feel a sense of responsibility? Of course. My dad started the business, and I feel like I'm a custodian. I don't own Surya -- I'm a custodian of Surya. I want to make sure I take it to the next level; I have a lot of responsibility to do it right. We plan and make investments for the long term.
CEOs are often owners, or they only think about the short term. So every time we do anything, we think with a custodian mindset about how this would impact the next generation of the business. That's a core value.
We look at our employees as well. We tell our employees that we are all custodians of Surya, and our job is to make sure that when we leave it, we've made it stronger than how we found it.
