Brands
Chtrbox launches Funbox, Influencer Gifting Service
Mumbai: Leading Indian influencer marketing company, Chtrbox announces the launch of Funbox, a creative and scalable influencer gifting solution, in time for the festive season. With the simple gesture of gifting, Funbox offers brands a smart solution to get their products in front of relevant influencers, build & strengthen meaningful relations, and most importantly get authentic reviews and earned media.
Commenting on the launch, Pranay Swarup, CoFounder and CEO, Chtrbox said, “Sharing of new products & personalized experiences with influencers is one of the most authentic and cost-effective ways to let your influencers know what’s awesome about your brand and product. Unboxings with influencers are often a missed opportunity, and we want to make it fun and easy for brand and influencers with Funbox.”
Unboxings are product reveals by influencers, and make for high impact quality videos that are most cost-effective and get above average engagement rates. “Our advantage at Chtrbox is that we’re able to analyze past unboxing performance of influencers to determine with whom and how a brand is most likely to see success. With the launch of our influencer gifting service Funbox, we aim to make marketers’ lives easier by getting the right product into the right influencer’s hands, at scale” adds Kajal Mehta, Head of Brand Partnerships at Chtrbox.
Funbox is a full suite influencer gifting and sampling solution covering strategy, data-driven influencer selection by Chtrbox’s proprietary influencer discovery platform, engaging content creation, and performance reporting. Funbox is also available for digital products who may not have considered unboxing before, with creative strategies on how to best showcase the brand and product.
Unboxing as a trend cannot be ignored, with exponential growth in usage in recent years. The best unboxings are done by category experts, who their followers look to for their knowledge and unbiased information. It’s a great, informal way to build a strong rapport with an audience to trust a product, assuming it is in fact a quality offering. Furthermore, Chtrbox recommends unboxings as great cost-effective approach for brands to validate whether popular social media influencers are true product advocates for them, prior to investing more heavily in them as formal brand influencers.
With the festive season around the corner, it's the right time of the year for brands to think about gifting & building meaningful relations with the right influencers. Interested to learn more about Funbox? Get in touch on hello@chtrbox.com
Brands
Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail reshuffles top deck; Nikhil Modha to take over as CFO
Phased transition sees Marco Agnolin head OWND!, Nikhil Modha lined up as CFO as company readies next growth leg
MUMBAI: Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail is redrawing its leadership map, lining up a new generation of executives across key roles as it prepares for its next phase of growth.
The company has named Suraj Bahirwani as chief executive (designate) of Pantaloons, effective April 1, 2026, with a full transition to the top role slated for October 1, 2026. He will also be designated as senior managerial personnel.
A two-decade veteran of the Aditya Birla Group, Bahirwani joined as a group management trainee in 2002 and has since held a string of leadership roles across retail and manufacturing. His resume spans stints at Aditya Birla Retail, a tenure as chief operating officer of Pantaloons, and most recently, head of global sales at the group’s cellulosic fibres business, where he drove international expansion and strengthened value-added portfolios.
Academically, he holds a PhD from the University of Mumbai, a postgraduate management diploma from SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, and is a chartered accountant. Over the years, he has picked up multiple chairman’s awards, including distinguished achiever, exceptional contributor and accomplished leader.
The transition at Pantaloons will be staged. Incumbent chief executive Sangeeta Tanwani will continue until September 30, 2026, steering the handover before moving into an advisory role to the managing director from October 1, 2026. She is set to retire on January 31, 2027, at which point she will step down as whole-time director and key managerial personnel.
Alongside, the company has brought in Marco Agnolin as chief executive of OWND! and senior managerial personnel, effective April 6, 2026. Agnolin arrives with over three decades of global experience, having held senior roles at Inditex, where he helped expand Zara in Italy, and later served as chief executive of Bershka and Diesel. His track record spans fast fashion, brand turnarounds and youth-focused retail.
On the finance side, Nikhil Modha has been appointed chief financial officer (designate) and senior managerial personnel from April 1, 2026. He will assume full charge as chief financial officer and key managerial personnel from January 1, 2027.
Current chief financial officer Jagdish Bajaj will oversee a phased transition until December 31, 2026, before retiring and stepping down from his roles.
The reshuffle signals a calibrated succession plan rather than a sudden overhaul, with the company staggering exits and appointments to ensure continuity even as it refreshes leadership across verticals.
As Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail juggles legacy brands and new-age formats, the message is clear: steady hands for the present, sharper ones for the future—and no pause in the push for scale.
