Inside the $2 billion rise of Petrochem's Yogesh Mehta – and what comes after

Arabian Business

2 days ago

There's something disarming about Yogesh Mehta. For a man who built a $2 billion juggernaut from the dust, he makes you feel like he's just glad you showed up for lunch.
'I'm in the twilight zone,' he smiles. 'That's the best part of the clock. 9 PM to midnight. Whatever I want, I will do. Whoever I want to make happy, I will.'
That's not the usual talk of a Gulf tycoon. But then again, Yogesh Mehta was never predictable – and never tried to be.
He began working at 16. Not for pocket money, but to pay bills. By the time he landed in Dubai at 29, Mehta had already weathered the kind of personal and professional storms most would never recover from. 'We didn't have jam on the table. We were just trying to keep the lights on.'
Back then, there was no LinkedIn, no mentors, and certainly no start-up ecosystem. Just a dusty library, a Yellow Pages, and a gut instinct that said: this place has promise. 'You carved water out of stone,' he says. Petrochem, the chemical distribution business he would go on to build, started with $300,000 in turnover. Today, it moves over $2 billion worth of product annually.
From a single office in Dubai, Petrochem now spans London, Singapore, India, Taiwan, Egypt, and beyond. It is the largest chemical distributor in the Middle East and ranks among the top dozen globally. But Mehta rarely leads with numbers. He leads with feeling. 'We are a happy company. Our happiness quotient would be 100 out of 100.'
Legacy in motion
These days, Mehta isn't sprinting to win the race. 'I've already won,' he says. 'Why would I keep running if no one is behind me?' The line is vintage Mehta: calm, reflective, gently humorous.
Yet his presence is anything but ceremonial. He still puts in six to nine hours a day, mentors key talent, and travels for business. Colleagues joke that he's 'semi-retired in theory, not in practice.' But while the engine still runs, it's no longer him behind the wheel. 'That's Rohan's job now,' he says.
Rohan Mehta, his only son, is now Managing Director. Soft-spoken but sharp, Rohan brings a different temperament to the business – analytical, digital-first, globally attuned. Alongside CEO Venu Nayar, a 35-year veteran who has been with Mehta since age 22, the trio forms a rare trifecta of legacy, leadership and long-term thinking. 'Rohan brings the youngness,' Mehta says. 'The freshness. The new element.'
The transition hasn't been symbolic. It's been gradual, deliberate and deeply embedded. 'You have to know when you become the stumbling block to growth,' Mehta says. 'I survive on gut instinct. But the company needs AI, digital transformation, and global intelligence. And I don't have those skills.'
What he does have – what few can replicate – is a legacy of judgement. And a culture he's spent 30 years cultivating. 'The only thing I can do is lend my experience. Build the culture. And step back.'
The world has changed
Mehta is under no illusion that his journey could be easily replicated today. If anything, he's clear-eyed about just how dramatically the business landscape has evolved – and how much harder it is to break through now.
'If I, by myself, remembering what I did when I came here, I would think that it would be a very steep climb for me to succeed in the landscape of today,' he says. 'The reasons are that you need a very different skill set than we had to counter the uphill task or the uphill competition that the world is suffering from.'
That competition isn't theoretical. It's global, immediate, and often overwhelming. 'China is the biggest competition to the world, to everything,' Mehta says. 'Oversupply of products is the biggest detriment to future growth.'
As a distributor, Petrochem faces a volatile landscape where pricing, demand, and sourcing can shift overnight. 'The world works with a demand, supply balance. That is, when there is good demand, there is good supply – everyone is happy. When there is over demand and poor supply – the customer is not happy. When there is oversupply, but the world doesn't want it – nobody's happy.'
The pace of change is relentless. 'Now the price structure in May might be very different than it was in March, and the customer who's received the cargo in May will say, 'Do you know that this morning, the price collapsed of the product that you're selling me?'' he explains.
Even the most fundamental industry structures are changing. 'Disruptive technology is going to be the leader of the future,' he warns. 'Uber. Bike riders. Online platforms. Real-time logistics. These are shaping how the chemical world must operate too.'
Technology isn't just affecting how Petrochem does business – it's also reshaping human behaviour. For Mehta, the rise of social media is emblematic of a broader cultural shift that prioritises speed and spectacle over substance. 'Social media is corrupting the world,' he says. 'It's misleading us. One day they tell you milk is good, the next day it's poison. Eggs are healthy, then they're dangerous. It's all confusion – noise without wisdom.'
He doesn't just see it as a generational annoyance, but as a structural distraction. 'The blue light before bed, the endless scrolling, the false validation – none of it adds real value. People are spending so much time reacting to the world, they've stopped creating in it.'
Beyond markets and machines, Mehta also sees a shift in mindset. 'The Millennials don't like to own. They like to lease. They don't think much about the marriage institution. They don't have that many children. All this affects the GDP of countries.'
So what does it take to survive? 'We would need sharper skill sets. We would need a thicker skin, tongue in cheek. We would have to reduce our needs.'
For Mehta, that context makes Petrochem's legacy all the more meaningful – and the next generation's challenge all the more complex.
The heart of happiness
Mehta's story is filled with hard-won wisdom. He doesn't airbrush the past. He speaks candidly of the moments when everything seemed stacked against him – times when he couldn't even afford the hospital bill for his son's birth. 'We had no money, and there was nobody to help,' he recalls. In another moment of brutal honesty, he describes how a heated argument with his sister led to years of silence before a moment of clarity struck him mid-flight to Lyon. 'I begged her forgiveness,' he says. 'She said, 'You're my brother. What are you talking about?''
These experiences didn't just shape him; they freed him. From those moments came humility, from humility came grace, and from grace came peace. Mehta is no longer a man consumed by ambition or the trappings of empire. 'I don't want to be Warren Buffett,' he says. 'Why would I run this company at 80? I'd rather be in Machu Picchu.'
He talks about opening a restaurant – not for profit, but for joy. He plays golf, collects vinyls, and immerses himself in jazz. His cellar is curated with the same attention to detail he once gave to logistics spreadsheets. And when the day has been long and unforgiving? 'I ask my cook to make the spiciest egg curry. We open a vintage bottle and let it breathe. That's my therapy.'
Much of that peace, he says, comes from the quiet strength of his wife. 'She's my companion. She's my mother, my mother-in-law, my sister, my lover, my mistress, my wife, grandmother… so I have a great company at home,' he says. 'We are best friends.'
They've known each other since childhood – she was six, he was seven. That shared history has become the anchor to everything. 'My wife plays Mahjong and does a lot of charity work. She's been with me through it all. We think the same. We bring that part into the company.'
It's not a retirement. It's a reinvention – one anchored by love, perspective, and personal peace. And perhaps the truest legacy of all: the freedom to savour life, with the person who's stood beside him through it all.
Petrochem's people first philosophy
Despite its scale, Petrochem remains proudly family-run. 'It's a mom-and-pop show with a $2 billion balance sheet,' Mehta quips. But behind that humour is a deeply serious ethical code. 'Keep your company happy, safe and secure. That's the whole ethos,' he says. 'You look after the people, and they will look after the numbers.'
That ethos radiates from the top and touches every corner of the organisation. The receptionist, whom Mehta describes as the 'window to the world,' receives as much care and attention as the most senior executive. 'A courier or a CEO sees her first. Her mood, her smile – that's our first impression.'
Expectant mothers are given daily fresh coconut water, saffron, and almonds. There's a private room for nursing, flexibility around maternity leave, and constant check-ins to ensure new mothers feel supported – not just accommodated. 'We treat it like a nursery,' Mehta says, 'because they're carrying our future.'
There are gender parity targets, mental health sessions, and open-door HR policies. Fridays are for ice cream. Departments regularly take team-building trips to Fujairah or Ras Al Khaimah. The finance team does karaoke. Sales go on hiking retreats. 'We even have mock dance sessions,' he laughs. 'Because stress is huge in our line of work. And joy is serious business.'
Building what's next
Even as he fades from the daily frontlines, Mehta remains Petrochem's chief crusader. The company is investing in a $100 million terminal at Jebel Ali, a sprawling facility designed to triple its current storage capacity and meet the surging demand for just-in-time chemical logistics in the Gulf. Mehta describes it as the physical manifestation of Petrochem's future – strategically located, digitally optimised, and built for scale.
Regionally, the firm is doubling down on Egypt, where two terminals – one in Alexandria, the other in Port Said – anchor its North African plans. Jordan and Syria are next. 'We were there before,' he says of Syria. 'And now we're going back. We build capacity quietly, and we let the service speak.'
On the horizon is a bold shift: specialty chemical manufacturing. Plans are already underway to commission facilities that cater to high-margin sectors like pharmaceuticals, coatings, and advanced materials. Parallel to this, new offices in Europe and the Americas are expected to open within five years. 'It's all about adjacency,' Mehta explains. 'If you do one thing really well, you look at the next five things your customer needs.'
Asked if an IPO is on the horizon, Mehta waves it off with the ease of someone who doesn't need an exit. 'We were offered $900 million six years ago. We said no. Maybe one day, if Rohan decides. Not me.'
Because Mehta knows his exit isn't about control. It's about continuity. And the future of Petrochem, he believes, lies not in the headlines – but in the infrastructure being built quietly behind the scenes.
In this reinvention chapter of his life, Mehta is clear: he doesn't want to be pigeonholed. 'I'm not a one-trick pony,' he says. 'I love this job, and I'm very good at it. But I also love jazz, food, travel, literature. Why would I only live one version of myself?'
The final word
When asked how he hopes to be remembered, Yogesh Mehta doesn't talk about market share or valuation.
'I wish to be known as a good guy,' he says. 'Not a tycoon. Just someone who brought good cheer. Who lived fully. Who left behind happiness.'
There are few business leaders who could say that – and mean it.
But then again, Yogesh Mehta was never the usual.