Ardashir Kabir
Mr. Ardashir Kabir was educated at Mayo College, Ajmer in India, and the King’s School Canterbury, Cambridge University and the London School of Economics, in the U.K. He studied History and Law at the two universities and completed his B.A.(Hons.) and Master’s.
Mr. Kabir has been a leading entrepreneur involved in various business sectors in Bangladesh for the last 35 years. In the Tea sector he is involved in tea production and plantations as the Managing Director of Sathgao Tea Estate and Director of Kedarpur Tea Co. Limited. In Print Media, he is a Director and Executive Editor of the daily Sangbad, which is the oldest Bengali daily newspaper in Bangladesh. In the area of Elevators & Escalators he is the Managing Director of Laboni Corporation Limited which represented Otis Elevator Co. of USA since 1973 and now represents XiXi Trust, Surapid and SJEC of China. He is the Managing Director of Ironside which is involved with metal trading from ship breaking. In the agro-forestry and aquaculture sector he is the Managing Director of Sathgao Agro Farms.
Mr. Kabir was in the sea-food processing and export sector as the owner and Managing Director of Fish Exports Limited, which was one of the oldest sea food processing factories of Bangladesh. He also owned and managed 400 acres of shrimp farms in Sathkhira. He was involved in tea trading and as Managing Director of A. Kabir Ltd was the first to start export of packet tea from Bangladesh to Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan, after the breakup of the USSR and the beginning of the private sector in these countries. He was also involved with commodity trading and signed the last STA (Special Trading Agreement) with TCB in the late 1980s. Apart from Harrison & Crosfield for the STA, he has represented many companies as diverse as CostainPlc, SJEC, Marubeni, Wrights, etc in various government projects. He has also been part of the management of Shampa Industries Ltd. which was one of the first companies in the private sector to repair and manufacture step down transformers.
Mr. Kabir was Vice President of the Employer’s Federation of Bangladesh (BEF) from 2017-2019. He has represented BEF at the ILO in Turin, at the EU in Brussels, and at the ILO meetings in Geneva. He is also a member of the national Tripartite Consultative Committee dealing with labour law.
He was the Chairman of the Bangladesh Tea Association (Bangladeshiyo Cha Sangsad) and was also a Director of the Bangladesh Tea Board which is the regulatory authority for the tea industry, including local tea trading and exports. At present, he continues to serve as the Convener of the Finance Committee of the Bangladesh Tea Association. Last but not least, he takes a particular interest in children’s education and has helped to set up and run a number of primary schools in rural areas.