Saji Daniel

Saji Daniel, BBA ‘90
President & CEO, Tradex International, Inc.

Saji Daniel is President and CEO of Tradex International, Inc., the largest supplier of general purpose disposable gloves in the United States. A true entrepreneur, he has transformed Tradex from a struggling start-up to a thriving corporation. Today, Saji’s company is the largest MBE glove company in the United States, achieving 20% compounded annual growth targets each of the last five years.

Saji was born in Kerala, India and emigrated in 1980 to Northeast Ohio. He started Tradex in 1988 at age 23 while he was studying marketing at CSU. He and his wife Lisa, a CSU education alum, sold the gloves door-to-door, by direct mail and by phone. They lost money for the first seven years, but kept at it while Saji worked full-time for a local freight auditing company. He now calls McDonald’s, Panera Bread and food distributor Sysco Corporation as his clients and enjoys the largest market-share in the food service industry.

With sales increasing at 20% per year in each of the past five years, Tradex prides itself on having an uninterrupted supply and being able to ship within 24 hours. Tradex maintains impressive fill and order accuracy rates of 98.86% and 99.43% respectively. In addition to its Cleveland headquarters, they have strategically placed warehouse operations in California, Texas and Florida. Tradex International is now approaching $100 million in sales.

Saji has won numerous awards for his fast growing private company, including being ranked 10th among Top 100 privately-owned Indian-American companies in the US in 2007 and 2008. NEO Success honored Tradex International as being one of the fastest growing companies in Northeast Ohio in 2008 and 2009.

Saji was honored by the Monte Ahuja College of Business as a member of the Business Alumni Hall of Fame in 2009.