From Medicine to Design: Dr. Viren Malhotra on Reinventing Success

When I was very young, we were about to move into a new house. It was a very big step in our lives and at that time, I was looking at everything related to design, buying all the design magazines.

Before this, I’d never wanted to buy anything that wasn’t related to football. The more I got into it, while the house was being finished, I realised I loved it.

Becoming an architect or an interior designer became something I really wanted to do when I was younger, inspired by the time my family spent building our house.

My father’s a well-known doctor in the community. When you look at it from the angle of a typical Indian family, if there is no family business, you are left with the option of either becoming a doctor or an engineer—if you have the grades for it.

Even so, I went to a school counsellor and was told if I couldn’t draw, I couldn’t be an architect… When I came home, it was my father who suggested: “Why don’t you become a doctor?”

I hated maths and I hated physics. All I was left with was biology, so I thought… Okay, doctor it is.

After graduating in medicine from Thailand, I went to the U.S. to complete my studies in anti-ageing and dermatology in New York. I was in New York for some time before I came back to Bangkok to work at Bumrungrad International Hospital.

The good side is the learning. You learn how to be more resilient, more tolerant, and more disciplined. You see the turbulent parts of life, perhaps more than the average person.

When you’re in school, through the long hours of studying, of reading, of the treatment you receive in medical school, you’re shaped into becoming more tenacious than others. To me, that’s the good side.

The bad side… [Contemplating.] Sometimes medicine can become more about business decisions and deals where people are focused on how to make money.

I never went into medicine with the thought of making as much money as possible. When I was working in New York, medicine was quite glamorous. I met a lot of high-profile New Yorkers and had even more high-profile bosses who would sometimes commute by helicopter from their home to the clinic.

You know, when you work under those celebrity doctors, you learn exactly what you want. I could’ve stayed in New York and made a lot of money but that wouldn’t fulfil me.

[Laughs.] You know, I was stubborn. I’m a free-spirited man. I can’t do something I don’t enjoy.

I always felt as though medicine was not something I wanted to do. When I’d proven that I could do it, I felt as though I had fulfilled my obligation.

What really helped was the support of my family. When I decided to pursue my passion, I was lucky that I had a place to live, food to eat, and the support of my family to survive.

It was this sturdy foundation which allowed me to slowly navigate my life elsewhere.

Real estate came before design because, although I love design, it would’ve been quite dramatic if I stopped medicine and opened an interior design store without any background in the field.

So I realised I either had to go to school again or I would have to gain major experience… quickly.

My father also had a small business with my mother running boutique hotels. I took the liberty of taking charge of that department and was the one who pushed the family towards real estate development and design.

I began real estate seriously, I think, in 2008. That was also when we took over a big project in Thong Lo. It was called The Grass Thong Lo and I put my passion, specifically my passion for design, into the project which became five times more successful than we had expected.

I think that was in part due to the design. It was not easy back then, to find someone who clicked with you on a design-based project.

I couldn’t go to the biggest design firm and say “Hey, do this for me.” They would provide me with the best designs but I wouldn’t have the resources to do so.

I ascertained that I would need to do my own research and create my own designs in order for my projects to turn out the way that I wanted.

I’ve been in love with Italian furniture for a long time. The first time I walked into a furniture store specialising and importing Italian furniture into Thailand, I never would’ve dreamed of placing those pieces in my project, or even in my house, because they were far too expensive.

Still, I was passionate about the furniture so I found a way to replicate the same products in a budget that was more suited to my needs.

Slowly, I began contacting manufacturers and factories, giving them the know-how of how to stitch and of how to import materials specific to the product so it would be of the right quality.

I’m a big believer in investing your passion into the design and then implementing the designs into your project.

The Grass Thong Lo. I was young when I took that under my wing and thus began the uphill battle of pushing my father to work with me on this project and to invest in it.

I had to be very persuasive. It became even riskier because the day we purchased the land, Thailand plunged into conflict. The airport was shut down, the finances from the bank—everything had stopped.

Still, I pushed through. That’s when I knew the design would be even more significant because if I didn’t know the design, I wouldn’t be able to turn it around.

Actually, before real estate, when I came back from New York, I took over the failed business that my father ventured into with a partner.

Back then, it was not an aerospace factory but rather, a manufacturer of machine parts. This was the first step to me navigating out of medicine and I said okay, I’ll look into it and see if we can turn it around.

That was in 2007. As I mentioned, I always hated physics and maths but this place required engineering knowledge so, in a roundabout way, I ended up doing everything an Indian family wants—from physician to engineer.

When I took over, I only knew that I wanted it to be successful. At the start, there was only loss, more loss, and even more loss.

Then another setback came in 2009–2010. I had to fire a lot of people from the factory and start all over.

What I learned is when you cannot earn, you have to control the cost. As the crisis arrived at our doorstep, and I started controlling costs, I learned how to make it work and how to operate as a business unit rather than an emotional unit.

We grew from there and in 2017, we got into the aerospace business and started producing the parts that go into making an aeroplane.

I think the hardest part that people don’t necessarily grasp is that when you’re starting everything from scratch, everything becomes a massive risk calculation.

So, while I established the real estate business, it only became successful through the years. I kept moving on from project to project and as the business grew, the size of the projects grew as well.

It was the same story with the manufacturing business. And then the COVID years hit and all of the planning I’d done wasn’t going as predicted.

Even when you plan for the worst, there are some realms of possibilities you can’t imagine. So when everything collapses simultaneously, the way it did then, you don’t know which issue to turn your attention to first.

I was resolving crises left, right, and centre and having to build from scratch again. At that point, you can’t be sure if you should even start over or whether it’s time to let go.

For me, that was the most difficult period of time due to the financial decisions and stress weighing on my shoulders.

But one thing really helped me during this difficult time and it was my company Matilda Home. In 2015, I had taken all the knowledge I gathered from my projects and turned it into a business.

Matilda Home is all the furniture I supply to my projects; it is the fruit of my knowledge, a place where I could put my energies into something I love the most.

In reality, I don’t have a singular person who’s influenced me because I always pick the good side of everybody.

I look at my mother who’s very passionate, very hardworking, and she’s stood by my father, supporting him. I’ve learned a lot from her.

I turn to my father, who’s also incredibly hardworking. I received my discipline and work ethic from him.

I look at my wife who has the liberty to think out of the box, to be more creative, and to have more fun in life. I get all these from different angles, from different people.

I also watch a lot of football and I find inspiration in Jürgen Klopp, the former Liverpool F.C. coach. That’s shaped a lot of my thought processes in life, whether it is business or otherwise.

I should stop. I shouldn’t explore anything more. [Laughs.] I think it’s come to the point where instead of exploring new things, I want to do what I already do in the best way I can.

I view it as moving from passion to happiness.

The success at the beginning after graduating from medicine was asking myself how I could do something I was passionate about and loved. That was the first phase.

I succeeded in doing what I love, something I was ardently attached to. As I said before, my focus was never on making money.

So, for me, the last phase of life revolves around continuing to do what I love while chasing happiness.

As a hard worker, I know that I work too much. So I have to learn to strike a balance between my passion and happiness.

That should be everyone’s intention in life.