Executive Chairman of Sutton Coldfield company named Asian Business Person of the Year
Entrepreneur Sukhpal Ahluwalia has been awarded Business Person of the Year at this year's prestigious Asian Achievers Awards.
The award recognises his role in building many of the country's largest businesses, including Euro Car Parts, Dominus and, most recently, Midlands-based GSF Car Parts.
Ahluwalia acquired GSF Car Parts in 2023 and, since then, it has become the UK's fastest growing car parts distributor.
Over the last 12 months, the business has expanded rapidly, opening 15 new stores to reach a total of more than 200 across its network. GSF Car Parts has its headquarters in Sutton Coldfield.
The business plans to add a further 15 branches over the coming year, which will create hundreds of new jobs across the country.
Earlier this year, GSF also inked a multi-million mega-deal on a new 500,000-sq-ft National Distribution Centre in Wolverhampton to support the explosive growth of the business.
Mr Ahluwalia said: "It is a great honour to receive this award. I'm hugely thankful to all my friends, team members, and partners who have contributed to the success of my businesses down the years. I'm proud of the role I've played in creating jobs and businesses across the length and breadth of the country."
Now in its 22nd year, the Asian Achievers Awards celebrates the outstanding work of individuals within the South Asian community across politics, business, and civil society. The Business Person of the Year award was sponsored by Andaria. The awards ceremony, which took place at London's Hilton Park Lane, attracted more than 500 distinguished guests from around the world and was hosted by former Eastenders star Nitin Ganatra and ITV newsreader Anila Dhami.
The award recognised Ahluwalia's track-record of founding and growing businesses. In 1978, he founded Euro Car Parts from a single store, and it was continuously ranked as one of the UK's most successful businesses by The Sunday Times Top Track 250.
The business grew to more than £1.2 billion in revenue by 2018, with a branch network of 350 locations and 11,500 colleagues. The business was sold to Nasdaq-listed LKQ Corp in 2014, with Ahluwalia staying on as Executive Chairman of LKQ's businesses in the UK, Ireland, and India until 2018.
In 2011, Ahluwalia founded Dominus, which has since become one of the UK's largest privately-owned property developers and operators, with super-prime sites across London and other major cities in the UK.
Mr Ahluwalia is also active in business and charity work in India, having committed to invest up to £10 million in the state of Punjab alongside seeking to back tech entrepreneurs across the country. In recent years, he has also supported the construction of a new school in Faridabad and plans to continue to scale up his activity in India in advance of his long-term aspiration to return to the country.
He added: "I love driving businesses from the front, and I'm very lucky to have been given the opportunity to do what I love – founding and building businesses – almost every day of my life. I've never really considered it a job! I'm going to give GSF every ounce of energy that I've got before I start to think about hanging up my boots to return to India."
