[1] Eswaran was born in Penang, Malaysia to Penangite Indian parents of minority Ceylonese Tamil descent, namely Pushpavathy Chinnaiah,[2] a teacher and Vijayaratnam Saravanamuthu, founder of the Malaysian Hindu Youth Organisation.

In 1985, he returned to the UK, where he learned about binary system marketing and obtained professional qualification from CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants).

When he returned to Malaysia after 13 years he was approached by the Cosway Group to start its Philippines business, after which he began moving into the direct selling industry.

[6] In 1998, after his return to Asia, he co-founded[7][8] a direct selling company that grew and expand into QI Group,[9] an e-commerce based conglomerate with businesses in travel, media, telecommunications, luxury products, wellness, training, and corporate investments.

[10] QI Group has regional offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia and a presence in nearly 10 countries through a wide range of subsidiary companies.

[11] In March 2006 Vijay Eswaran, and his business partners Joseph Bismark, Tagumpay Kintanar and Donna Marie Imson were accused of allegedly defrauding two Filipinos of more than $100,000 in the Gold Quest pyramid scheme.

The Department of Justice, Office of the City Prosecutor later dropped the charges following a Jakarta courts dismissal of the extradition request from the National Bureau of Investigation and citing it to be a civil liability and not a criminal case.

[citation needed] In May 2007[17] a dispute in Manila, Philippines filed by two former partners of the original founding team escalated to an alleged 'offence' leading to an Interpol Red alert listing the four directors.