HM Iqbal
President
Bangladesh Business Chamber of Canada
Managing Director
Canada National Trade & Exports Inc.
Brand Founder & CEO
Premium Sweets& Desserts Inc.
(Bangladesh–Canada–USA)
Dal & Chal (South Asian Cuisine)
Managing Director
Third House International Ltd.
Premium Interiors & Project Management Partnerships
Agroma Industries Ltd.
Sponsor Director
Hotel Sea Palace Limited
Managing Partner
Visvamata Nutrients LLC, USA
Success is inevitable for those who make timely decisions and engage in planned work. A shining example of this is HM Iqbal, an enlightened Canadian-Bangladeshi entrepreneur living in Canada since 1988. He is the Brand Founder and CEO of the topmost ranking sweets and savory brand “Premium Sweets”. Described by industry observers as “driven”, Iqbal recognized the potential of luxury brand in Food & Hospitality, International Trade, PR &M&A. Iqbal holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering with over 32 years of experiencein CPM, Brand Development, Brand Positioning, Business Development, Supply Chain Management, Merger & Acquisition, Human Resources Development & Business Expansion. Under his leadership, “Premium Sweets” started in 1999. The brand has grown from a small sweet manufacturing company to a major sweet delicacy brand in Bangladesh and Canada. “Premium Sweets” along with his food brand “Dal & Chal’ is opening its flagship store in Queens NY in December 2020. Today Premium Sweets synonyms to any upscale social celebration in cultured communities. In 1996, Iqbal became a Sponsor Director of Hotel Sea Palace, a 450 room seafront hotel facility in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Today, the hotel complex houses anchor tenants like United Nations Regional Office, major airlines, major commercial banks, international NGO in Cox’s Bazar. In 1998, before initiating Premium Sweets, he had created a strong retail management team in Dhaka, Bangladesh and started the then the most prestigious department store named Plaza Central Department Store, which was a destination shop for high-end fashion brand like Hugo Boss, Georgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Gucci, Luis Vuitton, Romeo Gigli, Paul Zileri, Missoni, Very, Ermenegildo Zegna, Canali, Valentino, Christian Dior & Chanel to name a few. Prior to this, Iqbal had a distinguished management career with Future Shop, the largest electronics retail brand in Canada. He was part of a goal oriented & aggressive management team that played vital role in Future Shop’s tremendous growth record, from a modest start of 2.8 million dollar sales in 1983 to a roaring 1.00 billion plus dollar revenue in 1995, in just 12 years. In August 1993 he was with core management team that played a vital role to take Future Shop IPO in Toronto Stock Exchange, raising $30 million (at $11.25 per share).Only two months after its initial public offering, Future Shop’s share price had doubled to $22, and the company forecast sales of $500 million for fiscal 1994.During his career with Future Shop, he participated in numerous training, seminar & symposium on Sales, Marketing, Brand Development, Bran Positioning, HR Development, Team Building, Employee Relations, Group HR Management and goal setting thus changed his engineering career to modern branding arena.
From 2007 till 2011, he served as Managing Director on the corporate board of Kipling Apparel Limited, a composite knit manufacturing unit employing over 1,500 staffs.
In 2008, he started Premium Sweets Canada operation and within 24 months, the name became top most ranking South Asian food & dessert brand in Canada overpowering huge brands like Haldiram, Bikanervala, Chhappan Bhog, Puranmal, Sony, Rahmat-e-shirin or Srikrishna from South Asia.
By 2015 Iqbal initiated Agroma Industries Limited, an export oriented frozen Ready to Eat Meal (cooked curries and meal combos) manufacturing industry in Bangladesh focusing on the export market. In following year 2016, he initiated “Third House International Ltd”, a leading lobbying-PR firm in Bangladesh specializing in Business Facilitation, Dispute Management, Leadership Branding, PLC Branding, Merger & Acquisition and facilitate Joint Venture partnership.
In 2018, he started Canada National Trade & Exports Inc, a firm specialized in export trade and trade consultancy on North American made building materials, interior design products, Corian & Solid Surface, Quartz and Caesar Stones, High Gloss boards and laminates, Trims, HPL for architectural furniture and interior designs, hospitality furniture, commercial and industrial kitchen equipment, retail display systems, hardwood flooring, carpets, construction tools, machineries and armored vehicles, including executive SUVs, bulletproof luxury sedans, special purpose vehicles, personnel carriers, cash-in-transit vehicles, to name a few.To boost up bilateral trade between Canada and Bangladesh, from 2016 till date, Iqbal lead Bangladesh Business Chamber of Canada as President of the Chamber and organized successful meeting with dignitaries from Bangladesh and Canada in many occasions. He has set out with an aim of staging a ‘modern Bangladesh’ to other countries of the world. He always feels Bangladesh in his heart. As a chamber leader, he thinks that although Bangladesh is in top level in the ready-made garment export sector, Bangladesh is not getting such a recognition yet till local branding efforts flourish. He strongly suggests that with proper R&D and branding initiatives, companies in this sector should be focusing now to create brands for North American, European and Asia-Pacific markets engaging western branding houses to help this thriving sector exponentially. With over two decades of branding & brand positioning experience, he firmly believes that future generation of talented Bangladeshi diaspora will come forward to do this work and eventually ‘Made in Bangladesh’ will be able to conquer the world.
In several forum he advocated that before sending workers abroad, initiatives should be taken to improve their technical & language skills to increase wage earner remittance to a potential five times of current level. He further emphasized, instead of universities, more trade schools and technical institutes should be set up to create skill work force to work locally and in foreign countries. He firmly believes Bangladesh is a country of immense potential although for now it is stuck in dilemma with leadership lacking in institutions, dearth of planned initiatives and bureaucratic complexities.
He affirms, by developing skilled HR, focusing on agro-food processing, textile value addition, setting up light industries and developing IT sector, very soonBangladeshwill join other nations who enjoys trade surplus. To increase FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in Bangladesh, he believes Bangladesh Government should take immediate initiatives to locate successful global entrepreneurs of Bangladeshi origin, engage them to encourage other Bangladeshi diaspora to invest in selected sustainable sectors in Bangladesh.
