KUALA LUMPUR: You may have read one of his 200-over newspaper columns, heard his voice on radio, seen his name as author on the cover of a paperback, or he may have whipped up a prawn mee goreng for you as you sat in his restaurant, but none of it compares to the force of nature that is Shankar Santhiram in person.

The Taiping-born Penang-bred entrepreneur who has toiled in British and Malaysian kitchens with the same energy and fervour as he has in vast conference rooms telling rising corporate stars how to be effective leaders, Shankar is an unstoppable cyclone of stamina and intensity.

Don’t be fooled, though, if he seems intimidating (or highly pre-occupied) before the first hello. 

Beneath the booming voice and laser-focus eyes, he is all heart, charm and dazzling smile. 

But the real gem within this multi-talented maestro is the raw, unfiltered and often funny anecdotes of his less-than-straightforward journey, making the simplicity of his hard-earned wisdom, even more poignant. 

Conductor and harmoniser

Though Shankar can swing from one subject to another with the ease of a trapeze artist, he can simultaneously let you feel like your comfort is his first, and only, priority. 

This is multi-tasking that takes his hard-earned people-managing skills to expert level.

“You know, the food has to leave by 6.30 to reach the orphanage in Setapak,” he booms into the dining area, as Pamela, his general manager, orchestrates the silent flow of restaurant staff between the glass-fronted kitchen and entrance of The Fire Grill in Taman Tun Dr Ismail. 

This tiny observed display of self-possession is likely why big companies pay him top dollar to harmonise the leadership fast track for aspiring corporate whiz kids, but the story goes far deeper than just innate confidence.

Rejection, betrayal and failure

With a simple question about whether being in business was part of his plan, Shankar tells FMT the most fantastic tale of his impulsive and off-track decision post-graduation to be a lecturer in a private college. 

His Appa, university lecturer R Santhiram, refused to fund Shankar’s entrepreneurial vision of starting his own private college; father and son didn’t speak for a few years. 

Another time, Shankar’s business proposal was rejected by an investor who then replicated (i.e. stole) those plans and set up his own business.

Rejection, betrayal, failure: Shankar has heard it, felt it, lived it, and most importantly, learned from it. 

‘If you fail, you fail, la!” is his succinct summary.  

It is also part of the basket of wisdom to enthusiastic, ambitious 25-year-olds if they, like him, then at 25, wanted to shun a comfortable cubicle life for the uncertainty of entrepreneurship.

“When you fail, you’re only allowed to mope for three days,” he deadpans. How long did he mope when the MCO 1.0 forced The Fire Grill into shutdown? “One week,” he laughs.

The alumnus of England’s University of Sussex, armed with a law degree and a head full of stories of people complaining about work, managed to convince a loose consortium of half a dozen investors to back his first business venture. Shankar, still in his twenties, later became the chief executive of a college.

That was over two and a half decades ago, and since then, Shankar has, to varying degrees of ownership and participation, five businesses in his mini-empire, including the Crackhouse Comedy Club where he is part-owner and an 18-bed Bed and Breakfast, Am Sonnenfels, in Lermoos, Austria, which is his wife’s country of origin.  

“I think I needed a strong Germanic woman to keep me in line,” he chuckles.

People and purpose

He’s been a regular guest speaker on BFM for 10 years, as well as records five-minute capsules aired twice a day on Lite FM’s breakfast show, and writes a weekly column on work matters for a national newspaper.

He also wrote a book in 2016, called “So, You Want To Get Promoted?”, all 5,000 copies of which have sold out. 

“In two decades of experience dealing with people, I hear the same work issues all the time,” he says. His latest column talks about dealing with work during the pandemic, and how one needs to move away from being problem-centric to finding solutions for oneself.

More importantly, beyond simply pivoting from past failures, he knows about purpose, the central driving force for living one’s days.

“If you don’t have purpose in doing what you do, you will get weighed down by the complexity of navigating your way through the rigmarole of daily life,” he says.

Many people equate success with happiness, he says, and that’s not right. “Success is about getting what you want, and what you want is going to change with age, but happiness is purely intrinsic.” 

Firebrand firecracker

The Fire Grill – spacious, bright and offering stylish Asian-fusion-fare – is Shankar’s latest venture in a list headlined by his core business, EQTD Consulting (management consulting and leadership coaching), 18 years now, for big gun-blue chip clients such as Petronas, Khazanah and CIMB. 

And if one remembers D’Legends Bar where The Fire Grill now sits, that was Shankar’s, too. “I bought it when it was four years old and ran it for five,” he recalls. 

“Running a bar didn’t fit with my whole branding, so I decided I wanted to do something else,” he says, and three months and several hundred thousand ringgit in renovations later, The Fire Grill was ignited in December 2019.

When the country is not in the throes of a movement control order (MCO), The Fire Grill is packed with diners, but Pamela will attest to Shankar’s no-nonsense approach to managing this place, because even if the cleanliness of the loos is not to his standards, Shankar will roll up his sleeves and literally get his hands dirty himself. 

Such is his down-to-earth side, unvexed by the hive of activity in his life, which includes turning down job offers with enormous salary packages, simply because, as he says with no apology, he cannot function before 10am.

He’s used to hard work. In his university days, his Appa could only afford to send 160 pounds sterling a month, which barely covered his rent.

Shankar placed an ad in a paper, and soon, he was cooking Asian meals in people’s homes for 15 pounds per diner. “I even gave some of them the recipes,” he laughs.

At The Fire Grill, he is both greeting diners and sweating it out in the kitchen alongside the other kitchen hands.

When MCO 2.0 hit, Shankar and the team pledged 20% of the restaurant’s revenue to feeding those most in need, which translates to sending out 100 boxes of food every day to Persatuan OKU Sentral and Kechara Soup Kitchen to feed the underprivileged.

The Manchester United FC fan has dined with all strata of society, but who would he like to have dinner with? “Gary Vaynerchuk,” he says, without hesitation.

“This is the guy who is empowered and empowering, and says, nothing is wrong, everything is fine.”

Very much like the infectious positive energy Shankar spreads in life, much will indeed be fine in the end. 

See more of Shankar’s adventures here.