Ruchi Dhir

How Many Years Has Ruchi Dhir Been In The Industry / At Harewood International Products Ltd?
So, officially started the day after Uni Graduation in June 2000, following a visit to a graduation fair where I was looking to do a law conversion course from the German Language and English Literature degree I had completed.

I was advised at that time, and something I still find to be true, that solicitors lacked commercial understanding and I should try and do a year in industry and then think about doing the conversion. I had worked unofficially for my dad my whole life, spending summer holidays visiting factories in India, weekends during school and uni life working in the warehouse and offices of the business and practised my German preparing for and exhibiting at the Frankfurt Trade fairs with the company since my GCSE’s : so officially since June 2000, unofficially… my whole life!

Ruchi’s Skills Set / Expertise
Definitely more sales and marketing than finance, though when you are working within a family business or SME, it is important to understand every department and the impact they have on each other as, ultimately everything is related.

I frequently return back to my dads comment when I asked to go to China to buy stock in my first month of officially working for him “you can’t buy until you can sell“ which bluntly explained that every process in a business is related and does not exist in a vacuum. So although I’d say my skills / expertise are more on the sales / marketing and presentation front, I have knowledge of the finance of the business which informs my decisions.

Coffee making, excellent snack choices, excellent music choices for our insta reels are some of my underrated skills!

Proudest Moment In Ruchi Dhir’s Life
So many as, when you are an SME you are often fighting it out amongst the bigger companies, there are so many times you have to overcome, when you do, it is always a proud moment.
The most recent however has got to be when I saw a double oven glove I had worked so hard to design appear as a prop in the award winning Baby Reindeer on Netflix! I was completely absorbed in the story, I nearly fell off my sofa when I saw my bee design double oven glove show up in one of the kitchen scenes!!

Best Advice From Ruchi
One of the challenges of working in a family business is having to accept (in my case on several occasions!) that your parents are usually right! Especially in a business they have run since 1968: the best advice I have received has really been from them.

As well as ‘you can’t buy until you can sell‘, another one of my parents nuggets ‘when you’re self employed, you’re unemployed! – you need to find a way to earn a living and find work for the people you employ – which pushed me to create my own opportunities, as well as ‘Two plus two is four, two minus two is zero‘ – which always kept my ego in check and made me realise that effective teamwork and delivery is far more important than a single person or idea.