Page 5 - CC Jan 2017 Issue 4_1

Issue No. 4 / January 2017 — No. 1.4 / Week Ending on January 22, 2017
Meet your fellow franchisees

I’m Yogesh Shah, one of the pioneering franchisees of the UCMAS pro-
gram in Canada, with my Centre based in Mississauga, and an ardent
supporter of this ‘complementary’ education system. My family & I
moved to Canada in 2002. My wife Shivani & I have two sons, Akshay &
Salil, who have graduated with honors in their respective fields of fi-
nance and engineering. Akshay qualified from University of Waterloo
in the Science & Business stream and is working as Senior Business
Analyst, whereas Salil, did his Mechanical Engineering from University of Toronto and is employed
as Manufacturing Engineer based in Troy, Michigan. I did my B.Sc (Honours)and then qualified in
the MBA program of Bombay University, specialising in marketing & financial management, and
subsequently gained extensive experience in banking & industry with involvement in a few start-
ups.
The only difference was that those start-ups which I head-
ed were owned by others whereas the UCMAS franchise is
my own baby. In this I have to acknowledge the support &
guidance given by Mr Vijay Karia and Snehal & Anand dur-
ing my formal initiation into this new business in Canada.

I have been a witness to the struggles & challenges faced
by Anton and Shankar as they would have been to mine in
operating this new educational program, novel to this part of the world. It has been a huge learn-
ing experience having my own business .It has taught me that patience & persistence are the best
virtues in any human endeavour and I have learnt this the hard way. In fact to parents of our stu-
dents I always inform that UCMAS is not a magic show but a scientific program where they have to
be patient & persistent in order for their kids to properly acquire the techniques being taught.

I have been quite fortunate that many of my trained CIs have progressed to becoming essential
assets of the UCMAS Canada Head Office. Moreover given the demographics & location of my Cen-
tre(which is in a location where new immigrants reside initially) so many of my students have
moved to other centres when their families acquire their own residence , mostly towards the west.
In a way we are termed jokingly as the ‘mother centre of UCMAS Mississauga’ as so many fran-
chisees have set up their own centre taking a leaf out of our book.

With the enterprise and untiring efforts of Anand, Snehal and Megha, of UCMAS North America &
India, our network has expanded and gradually deepened in the sense of professionalism and is
blessed with a set of excellent and dedicated franchisees whom I’m particularly proud to be associ-
ated with.
I have to put in a note of my extreme gratitude to my team of teachers who are largely responsi-
ble for whatever success we have achieved till date in imparting this powerful medium of instruc-
tion.

Besides seeing our students developing before my eyes & the pride derived therefrom, what is
quite satisfying is the opportunity given to observe & interact with varied cultures and the myriad
backgrounds of our students coming from different corners of the world. This has enabled me to
broaden my horizon and helped me to grow as a person.

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