Solisco is pleased to announce that our CEO, Parveen Begum has been honoured by Forbes Magazine on the European list for manufacturing and industry. The list, compiled by the world’s renowned business magazine, ranked Parveen as one of Europe’s 30 most influential industrial entrepreneurs under the age of 30.
For the past four years, Parveen and her team have worked incredibly hard to pave an industry, educating people on their niche expertise and create a strong pipeline of renewable infrastructure projects which would aid the movement of electromobility in the UK. And just as many businesses, Solisco too felt the devastating knock back as the unexpected world pandemic hit in early 2020. However, on 17th March 2020, much to her delight, Parveen received an email from an unexpected sender:
Entrepreneurs Of The Forbes Under 30, 2020
“At a time of great global uncertainty, it is hard to see beyond the doom and gloom. Fortunately, our fifth annual Under 30 Europe list delivers a much needed dose of optimism. Here we highlight the young visionary leaders brashly reinventing business and society. From a Finnish duo turning used coffee beans into sneakers to a Dutch team designing solar powered cars, the ingenuity and creativity Europe’s young entrepreneurs indicates that the best just might be yet to come. This year’s list is the result of thousands of international nominations, months of investigative reporting and the seal of approval from our panel of blue ribbon judges. The result: 300 young visionaries boldly redefining ten industries across 32 European countries.” by Alexandra Wilson, with Iain Martin and Alex Wood, Forbes.
Upon reading the great news, Parveen felt absolutely humbled and it gave her a sense of heightened positivity; that despite all of what was happening around the world, she would not let it encroach on the hours, months and years of hard work, put into a company that she so strongly believes in.
Solisco is a specialist company that provides consultancy, thought leadership and clean tech infrastructure to support electric vehicles. Parveen is very passionate about electric vehicles following her career at Tesla. One of her main focuses is on education and eliminating the many myths and objections that often stand in the way of electric vehicle uptake. The heartbeat of the company lies on the growing negative impacts that poor air pollution is having on our people and environment.
Parveen’s Journey
Parveen Begum just 28 years old, is a force to be reckoned with! A force for good albeit, determined to make a difference in the world. She is the third child of eight, whose parents moved from Bangladesh to live and work in the UK. Her grandfather was the first to migrate with his role working on the British Royal Navy ships during World War 2, and her father, at the age of 11, started his journey in the UK, to eventually becoming a successful businessman in luxury asian couture, and property investments.
During Parveen’s early life, she was exposed to visiting her greater family in Sylhet, Bangladesh, whereby she was delighted to immerse herself in nature and simplicity of life out there. A world very different to her western world, Parveen learnt firsthand the struggles that many people in remote, third world countries faced, in particular, lack of education and energy poverty.
This encouraged Parveen to focus on her education, and she performed very well through academia, leading her to the doors of Law School. It was only until embarking on her law degree that Parveen realised that she was doing something that didn’t really challenge her, that didn’t spark the creative streak within her, and before her first year came to an end, she took the brave decision to drop out of university and make the transition from student to manager.
Somewhat following in her father’s footsteps, Parveen began her professional career working in luxury retail for the world renowned brand Burberry. She swiftly moved from part-time sales advisor and visual merchandising specialist to a management position and was responsible for her own team and the construction and opening of the first Men’s Burberry Store in the West Midlands.
In 2015, Parveen was delighted to have been head-hunted to work for Tesla, who were in their infancy in the UK at the time. Her roles within the two year period evolved from electric vehicle product specialist, marketing coordinator to sales advisor. Her final days involved helping with the opening of the Solihull store as Tesla ramped up their retail markets by creating more presence in shopping malls worldwide.
The first UK Tesla team!
Being a part of the Tesla team during the early period, helping to pave the EV industry, allowed Parveen to make many observations, including the uncertainty that drivers faced about where to charge their vehicles, the reliability of the infrastructure and just how clean the energy was that powered them. Hence, the ideas to start up her own renewable EV infrastructure company was inspired by her experience at Tesla, and her early experiences of energy intermittency in Bangladesh.
What drives Parveen?
Parveen has been a keen traveller over the years, and this has also helped her to bring together ideas and ramp up her ambitions. In her spare time, Parveen enjoys activities that bring her closer to nature such as hiking in the mountains, or submerging herself in the ocean as an underwater diver. She has dived unexpectedly with dolphins and nurse sharks, through caves, and amongst shipwrecks! She believes that in a world that is moving and evolving so fast, we must take a very conscious step to prevent us losing our ability to enjoy the present moments, and indulge in simpler things that bring us back to our creative self. Parveen loves to socialise but does not have social media platforms such as Facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. as she is passionate about having real meaningful social connections and experiences. She also feels that a lot of people lose themselves in such a digital world that they often feel disconnected to the real world, causing all sorts of impacts on their health, well-being and general perception of life.
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- Paddleboarding in Canadian frozen lakes
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- Diving in the Egyptian Red Sea
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- Hiking up Jungfrau in Switzerland
Congratulations to Parveen for her contribution to the future of electric vehicles through her passion and heartfelt desire to make the world a better place for future generations!
“There is a lot to be done in the way of solving environmental challenges; but if each and every person did something; small or big, we could make a big difference collectively.” Parveen Begum
To read more about Parveen’s recent achievements, featured on various articles, including the Shropshire Star, FSB and Bdaily, please see links below:
https://www.forbes.com/profile/parveen-begum/#57a2a4071512
