MAM
Max Fashion promotes insider as CEO
MUMBAI: Retail empires are not built by the faint-hearted. Sumit Chandna, freshly installed as chief executive of Max Fashion, knows this better than most. The 25-year veteran, promoted from deputy chief executive at Lifestyle International, has spent a career extracting profits from India’s cutthroat retail trenches.
His record is formidable. At every stop—Shoppers Stop, Hypercity, Aditya Birla Retail, Bata India and Landmark Group—Chandna has delivered the same brutal formula: fatter margins, leaner costs, higher sales. It is a skill honed across hypermarkets, department stores and specialist retail, from high fashion to groceries.
A graduate of the National Institute of Fashion Technology in Delhi, Chandna earned his stripes at Shoppers Stop, where he launched India’s first designer co-brand, Kasba, with Raghavendra Rathore. At Hypercity, he built merchandising systems from scratch and delivered results 70 per cent above plan with margins six percentage points higher than target. During an 11-year stint at Aditya Birla Retail, he rose to chief merchandising officer, pushing promotional sales from eight per cent to 23 per cent in four months and launching profitable private-label lines.
Three years at Bata India saw him juggle retail operations and merchandising before Landmark Group poached him in 2022 to run Max as deputy chief executive. Now he has the corner office.
Chandna is also a certified executive coach who has recruited talent from top business schools across India and Asia, lectured at management campuses and attended leadership programmes at Harvard and IMD in Lausanne. He won the Aditya Birla Group chairman’s award for exceptional contribution—no small feat in a conglomerate that size.
His mandate at Max is simple: keep the juggernaut rolling. In announcing his promotion, Chandna promised to lead the brand into its “next phase of growth, innovation, and impact”. Strip away the corporate speak, and it means the same thing it always has: sell more, spend less, make more.
MAM
Aspire Impact secures Parinama backing, appoints CEO
Valued at Rs 360 million, adds advisor, scales ESG platform globally
MUMBAI: Impact, it seems, is finally getting its own balance sheet. Aspire Impact has secured strategic backing from The Parinama Group, while appointing Saloni Malhotra as chief executive officer of its services arm, Aspire Impact Assurance (AIA). The company has also brought Dr Ram Sharma, Chancellor of UPES, on board as an advisor marking a three-pronged push to scale its ESG and impact measurement ambitions.
Following the investment, Aspire Impact is now valued at INR 360 million, underscoring growing investor interest in the ESG and sustainability ecosystem. Over the past six years, the company has expanded at pace, reporting a 65 per cent CAGR in client growth and 83 per cent CAGR in revenues, with a portfolio of 60 plus clients and more than 150 engagements across ESG, sustainability and impact measurement.
Its client roster includes names such as Ather Energy, Protean eGov, Mahindra Lifespaces, Urban Company, Capgemini, Kotak Bank and ICICI Bank reflecting demand for structured impact assessment across sectors.
The fresh capital will be channelled into scaling its SaaS platform, Ikoo World, and expanding operations both in India and internationally. The broader market itself is on a growth curve, with the global ESG and impact measurement space projected to nearly double from $15 billion in 2025 to $31 billion by 2030.
Malhotra’s appointment signals a sharper operational focus. With over two decades of experience spanning corporate leadership, social impact and media, she will lead Aspire’s Comprehensive Impact Assessments across corporate, BFSI, education and non-profit sectors, with a government-focused edition also in the pipeline.
Meanwhile, Dr Sharma’s addition to the advisory board strengthens the organisation’s academic and governance depth, as it looks to bridge the gap between institutional rigour and corporate accountability.
The broader play is clear: as businesses face increasing pressure to quantify not just profit but purpose, companies like Aspire Impact are positioning themselves as the scorekeepers of a new metric where impact is measured with the same seriousness as revenue.
