About Vijay Eswaran and QI Group
Vijay was born in October 1960 to parents Pushpavathy Chinnaiah and Vijayaratnam Saravanamuthu, who started the Hindu youth organization of Malaysia. Vijay attended the LSE and graduated in 1984. He made his education a possibility by taking menial jobs like cab driving to finance his education. After graduating, Vijay made travels in Europe, where he took odd jobs for sustenance. It is during one of these travels that he devoted a month to a monastery. Here, Vijay engaged in a ritual of silence that he endured for 33 days. He later wrote about this experience in one of his books.
After returning to Europe in 1985, Vijay underwent schooling on the system of binary marketing and was awarded the CIMA qualification. He later earned an MBA at the South Illinois University in the US in 1986. During this period, he got involved in multi-level marketing while working at Systematics, which is an IBM subsidiary. When he returned 13 years later to Malaysia, the Cosway group approached him to start its Philippines business. It is during this time that he grew a curious interest in multi-level marketing.
In 1998 he returned to Asia and co-founded a company that dealt in direct selling. This company later grew to become the QI Group. The company invested in the travel business, media, luxury, telecommunications products, training, wellness, and corporate events. This venture is an e-commerce platform that has regional headquarters in Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and is also present in another ten countries.
Together with Green Venture, which is a subsidiary of the QI Group, Vijay Eswaran began developing QI City in 2017. This is a multibillion residential and commercial development that was to consume 1.2 billion rm. The project is set to end in 2020. Vijay is currently the chairman of QI University.