For Riyaaz Amlani, the restaurant business has never really been about selling food. It is about giving people time, space and a reason to come together. That belief began with Mocha and has shaped 25 years of Impresario. Today, Riyaaz leads the company’s long-term vision, new concepts, locations and portfolio direction, with an instinct for reading cultural and consumer shifts before building for them. From café culture to SOCIAL’s idea of the third place, his thinking has consistently moved ahead of categories. Yet his first principle remains unchanged: processes make businesses scalable; people, soul and belongingness make them worth returning to.
OUR PEOPLE
MEET THE MASTERMINDS BEHIND OUR SUCCESS STORY
We believe that the contribution of every single team member has got us to where we are today. Our goal is to continue to provide them with a platform where they can follow their passions, while being agents for change in the F&B industry
RIYAAZ AMLANI
FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR
ARSHAD SYED
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Arshad Syed has helped turn Impresario’s entrepreneurial ambition into an organisation built to endure.Part of the company since 2008, he works at the intersection of the Board, leadership and business, shaping strategic direction while strengthening governance, operating discipline and organisational fundamentals. His perspective on scale is especially important today: a larger company should give every restaurant stronger systems, teams and capabilities without making the experience feel standardised. As Impresario grows, Arshad helps hold that balance together; institutional rigour on one side, individuality and human hospitality on the other, ensuring that scale strengthens the company without diluting what makes it distinctive.
SATYAJIT DHINGRA
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
Satyajit Dhingra is responsible for ensuring that what Impresario promises as a brand is what a guest actually experiences. A long-standing part of the company’s journey, Satya leads operations across the restaurant portfolio, bringing together guest experience, people, commercial performance and execution across cities and formats. His strength lies in understanding hospitality where it ultimately matters: on the floor, one service and one interaction at a time. As Impresario grows, Satya’s role is to make scale feel invisible to the guest; stronger systems, more capable teams and sharper execution behind the scenes, while every restaurant retains its own personality and local relevance.
DIVYA AGGARWAL
CHIEF GROWTH OFFICER
Divya Aggarwal’s role begins with a deceptively difficult question: what makes people care, participate and come back? As Chief Growth Officer, she leads growth across marketing, delivery, content, community, programming, digital, CRM and communications, bringing together disciplines that are often treated separately. Her approach is rooted in understanding how consumers relates with brands, culture and going-out occasions are changing. That thinking has helped move SOCIAL beyond conventional restaurant marketing towards experiences built around participation and community. At its centre is belongingness: the idea that people increasingly seek spaces that affirm something about who they are. Divya’s mandate is turning that understanding into enduring relevance and sustainable growth.
CHIRAG PUNJABI
CHIEF STRATEGY & FINANCE OFFICER
Chirag Punjabi sits at the point where Impresario’s ambition meets its economics. As Chief Strategy & Finance Officer, he brings strategy, finance and technology into closer alignment, creating a more integrated framework for deciding where to invest, how to grow and what capabilities the company needs next. Having worked closely with the Managing Director’s Office before stepping into his current role, Chirag combines financial discipline with a detailed understanding of the business. Today, his focus is on building a company capable of scaling sustainably; balancing opportunity with governance, growth with returns, and entrepreneurial instinct with the institutional strength required to carry Impresario into its next chapter.
SHAMSUL WAHID
GROUP EXECUTIVE CHEF
Chef Shamsul Wahid has the unusual job of making creativity work every day, across dozens of kitchens. Having grown within Impresario from Sous Chef to Group Executive Chef, he now shapes food across SOCIAL, Smoke House Deli, BOSS Burger, Aflatoon, Lucknowee and more. His remit extends beyond dishes into menus, kitchen systems, training and culinary teams capable of delivering distinct brand identities at scale. Shamsul’s cooking begins with diner behaviour; understanding when people want familiarity, discovery or comfort. His work connects Indian ingredients, regional memory and contemporary formats, creating food designed not just for novelty, but for loyalty, memory and ritual.
GRESHAM FERNANDES
CULINARY DIRECTOR
Chef Gresham Fernandes has spent more than two decades proving that originality and deliciousness never need to compete. One of Impresario’s defining culinary voices, he has shaped restaurants from Salt Water Café and Smoke House to the fiercely local Bandra Born. A residency at Copenhagen’s Noma expanded his vocabulary, but his cooking has increasingly turned towards memory, neighbourhoods and food traditions closer to home. His philosophy is deceptively simple: less is more, but simple should never mean shallow. Gresham brings curiosity, restraint and a strong sense of authorship to Impresario, ensuring that growth creates more room for culinary ideas, not less.
AMBARISH SHARMA
CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICER
In hospitality, culture eventually walks onto the restaurant floor. That idea sits at the heart of Ambarish Sharma’s approach to people leadership. As Chief Human Resources Officer, he leads Impresario’s people and culture agenda, where thousands of employees collectively shape the guest experience. His work moves HR beyond policies and transactions towards listening, recognition, development and meaningful participation. Ambarish believes disengagement is not simply an HR metric; it is something a guest can eventually feel. As Impresario grows, his mandate is to build stronger careers, leadership capability and employee experiences; creating a workplace where people do not simply work, but see a future and a sense of belonging.
HARDIK SHAH
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
Hardik Shah’s view of hospitality technology begins with what it should not do: get between people. As Chief Technology Officer, he leads the systems and digital thinking connecting Impresario’s restaurant ecosystem, from consumer journeys and restaurant technology to automation, data and emerging applications of AI. His approach is deliberately pragmatic: technology should remove friction, make information more useful and help teams make better decisions, while human judgement remains firmly in charge of creativity and hospitality. As Impresario grows across brands, channels and cities, Hardik is building the digital backbone that makes scale feel simpler, connecting complexity behind the scenes so the guest experience remains intuitive, responsive and human.
VINOD PANDEY
PRESIDENT - LEGAL ADMINISTRATION
Vinod Pandey has been part of Impresario’s story from its formative years, giving him an institutional understanding that is difficult to replicate. As President – Legal Administration, he oversees the legal, regulatory and government liaisoning responsibilities behind a hospitality business operating across markets, brands and jurisdictions. His role combines legal judgement with commercial understanding: anticipating risk, navigating regulatory environments and enabling new ideas to move from ambition to execution on sound foundations. Hospitality often celebrates what happens in front of the guest; Vinod’s contribution lies in what must work behind it. As Impresario grows, his continuity, judgement and governance become increasingly critical to building confidently and responsibly.
RIZWAN AMLANI
BRAND HEAD
Rizwan Amlani approaches hospitality with the curiosity of a chef and the conviction of a brand builder. Classically trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York, his journey across kitchens, coffee and entrepreneurship has shaped a sharp instinct for concepts with cultural depth. Today, through brands such as Mezcalita and La Taqueria by Mezcalita, he brings food, beverage, design and hospitality into one coherent world. His focus is ensuring that growth never flattens what makes a concept special. For Rizwan, great hospitality makes unfamiliar cultures accessible without making them generic; creating spaces people feel invited into, not simply impressed by.
