News & Events · Green Business Matching · 4 Nov 2026

Dr. C.K. Ashok Kumar: a son of the CK family brings First World Community and EMERGE AURO to Vietnam’s green businesses

On the morning of 4 November 2026, among the guests at Green Business Matching Day Vietnam at Lumi Hub, one figure stood out: a beige waistcoat, a green-and-gold stole over the shoulder, white hair and a white beard. This was Dr. C.K. Ashok Kumar, Founder and Chairman of First World Community (FWC), who came on behalf of India’s CK family. He sat beside the Consul General of India, Dr. Vipra Pandey, before the opening, spoke on stage with Mr. Thao Le, and visited many booths, talking with and taking photos alongside Vietnamese green businesses.

GBM NetworkĂn Chay TV

AnchayTV · Official media partner of Green Business Matching Green business stories 24/35 from Green Business Matching Day Vietnam, 4 November 2026. Original on gbm.network ↗

Dr. C.K. Ashok Kumar · First World Community at Green Business Matching Day Vietnam, 4 November 2026

Dr. C.K. Ashok Kumar · Founder & Chairman, First World Community (FWC) · Chairperson, EMERGE AURO · Chairman, THOFA (Thamil Organic Farmers Association), India

Dr. C.K. Ashok Kumar
Dr. C.K. Ashok KumarFounder & Chairman, First World Community · Chairperson, EMERGE AURO · Chairman, THOFA, India

The CK family and the sachet that changed how India buys

To understand Dr. Ashok Kumar, start with his father. In the late 1970s, Chinni Krishnan, a farmer from Tamil Nadu, packed shampoo into small sachets of about 20 grams for around 50 paise, less than one rupee. His philosophy, as his son C.K. Ranganathan puts it, was that whatever the rich enjoy, the common man should be able to afford. The sachet carried that idea into daily life, from shampoo to malt drinks, coffee and ketchup.

According to figures Dr. Ashok Kumar and his brother C.K. Ranganathan shared with YourStory in 2018, India’s shampoo industry grew from about ₹5 crore to about ₹9,000 crore, and the sachet model created about 15 million jobs. Each of Chinni Krishnan’s four sons built a business: Dr. C.K. Rajkumar with Velvette, C.K. Ranganathan with CavinKare, C.K. Kumaravel with Naturals Salon & Spa, and Dr. C.K. Ashok Kumar with First World Community. He still remembers his father saying that one day the world would know the family by the sachet.

Watch Dr. Ashok Kumar speak at the 13th CavinKare-MMA ChinniKrishnan Innovation Awards, 2024: video on YouTube. And watch the documentary The birth of the shampoo sachet and India's sachet revolution, where he tells the story of his father, who created the one-rupee shampoo sachet, and of conscious capital.

The book: The One Rupee Indian Startup Engine

The sachet story is now a book. The One Rupee Indian Startup Engine, subtitled Decoding the Sachet Revolution: From nano steps to unicorn leap, is written by Dr. C.K. Ashok Kumar with his brother C.K. Kumaravel, founder of Naturals Salon & Spa. On the cover are their father Chinni Krishnan’s words: "What a rich man enjoys the common man should be able to afford too".

According to the CK family’s invitation, the book was launched at 5:30 pm on Monday, 29 September 2025, at the Anna Centenary Auditorium in Chennai. Mr. N. Ram, Director of The Hindu Publishing Group, released the book, Mr. Siva Sankaran (Mentor, AIWO) received the first copy, and Mr. K. Pandiarajan, co-founder of Ma Foi, was among the chief guests.

For Vietnam’s green start-ups the sachet story is a familiar lesson: a small product at a price everyone can afford can open up a whole market. Companies that would like a copy can register below, and the organisers will let them know when the next batch of books is available.

← All articles

Keep reading

4 Nov 2026GBM The birth of the shampoo sachet and India's sachet revolution: the man who created it was Dr. C.K. Ashok Kumar's fatherA man walking through a village in India saw some boys with dirty, matted hair and asked why they did not wash it with shampoo. The boys asked back: "What is shampoo?" That question became the starting point of India's sachet revolution. In a 28-minute conversation on Unfiltered by Naturals, Dr. C.K. Ashok Kumar, Founder of First World Community and Chairperson of EMERGE AURO, tells the story of his father, Chinni Krishnan, and has a blunt message for young people who want to start a business: a lack of capital is no reason to stand still. 4 Nov 2026GBM1 photos Hallelu Chocolate: the car engineer who built his own chocolate line to pay farmers double for their cocoaOn a work trip to the Mekong Delta, Nguyễn Hồng Huy, a mechanical engineer born in 1990 in Bình Định, watched farmers in Tiền Giang and Bến Tre cutting down their cocoa trees. Beans fetched only VND 30,000–45,000 a kilo, squirrels raided the pods, and the crop was not worth the effort. The question he took home was: "What can be done to make life less hard for the farmers?" 4 Nov 2026GBM1 photos Chay Garden: Vietnam's first vegetarian restaurant in the Michelin Bib Gourmand, four years runningAt the end of alley 52 on Võ Văn Tần street stands an old French villa with no sign on the door and a garden left as it was. Chay Garden opened there in 2018 with a goal that sounds simple enough: get people to eat more plant-based food, by easing them off animal protein rather than demanding an overnight conversion. "The food has to be good first. Only then can you persuade a guest to come back," a representative of the restaurant told VnExpress.