Fritz Fernandes joins Mahindra Group as head of events and partnerships

MUMBAI: Fritz Fernandes has spent 17 years where luxury, entertainment and commerce collide. Now he has a bigger stage. In September 2026 he joined Mahindra Group as head of events and partnerships for Mahindra Experiences, a vertical dedicated to building world-class, immersive and category-defining experiential properties. The ambition is plain: larger than life, and then some.

Fernandes brings global insight across luxury lifestyle, hospitality, music, sports and cinema. His speciality is taking entertainment companies to the next level by setting up new, profitable live businesses and driving non-core revenue streams with skill. His method pairs expert strategic partnerships with innovative experiential marketing, which delivers strong brand positioning and an enduring market footprint in every venture. He has also invited anyone who sees synergies to reach out directly and build something truly larger than life together.

The move follows a stint as vice president and head of experiences at PVR Limited, from December 2024 to June 2026, a period of one year and seven months. There his mission was to deliver live experiences to the comfort of a screen near you, across a line-up that spanned FIFA, Wimbledon, the IPL, the WPL, Global Citizen, the Asia Cup, the ICC World Cup and LaLiga. Few executives can claim to have taken so many marquee events to the cinema screen.

Consider the breadth of what came before. From April 2023 to December 2024 Fernandes was head of marketing for Oberoi Hotels at The Bay Club, Mumbai, an exclusive invite-only members club owned by Reliance Industries Limited and managed by The Oberoi Hotels. His remit covered curation, member engagement, PR, collaborations and programming. Before that, from July 2022 to March 2023, he was head of experiences and senior general manager at Cadila Pharmaceuticals Limited, working across luxury lifestyle, leisure travel, exclusive events, elite concierge, global logistics and charters.

The longest chapter came at Condé Nast India in Mumbai, where he served as head of events and exhibitions from July 2016 to July 2022, a stretch of six years and one month. The portfolio covered Vogue, GQ, Architectural Digest and Condé Nast Traveller, along with exhibitions. Sport followed. From March 2015 to February 2016 he was team manager at FC Pune City, run by Football Sports Development Limited, handling team management, marketing, stadium operations, PR and merchandise.

Earlier still, from January 2011 to March 2015, he was senior manager of marketing at DNA Networks in the Bengaluru area. The properties there read like a roll call of Indian live entertainment: The Indian Derby, F1 Rocks, the Indian Super League, the Indian Premier League, Rock n’ India, the Hockey India League, International Fashion Weekend, Sound Awake and the Champions League. He began in music, as marketing consultant for international repertoire at EMI Music in Mumbai from June 2008 to January 2011, working across A&R, marketing, sales, live events and PR.

That mix matters. Few careers run from a record label to a football club, a luxury magazine house, a private members club and a multiplex chain. Each stop sharpened a different muscle: partnerships, programming, hospitality, fan engagement and contract negotiation. Mahindra Experiences needs all of them.

The fit is a sound one. Premium experiences are where brands now compete for loyalty, and a group with the reach of Mahindra needs an executive who knows how to turn an event into a lasting business. In Fernandes, it has one who has done precisely that, again and again.