Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 1: The Retailers Association of India (RAI) successfully hosted the ‘Retail CFO Summit 2026’ at JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar on September 24, 2026. This distinguished event brought together CFOs, CEOs, and finance leaders from across the retail sector. The summit focused on the timely theme: Beyond the Balance Sheet – The Evolving Role of the Retail CFO.
As the retail sector undergoes continuous transformation, the CFO’s role is becoming more vital than ever, emphasizing digital innovation, economic resilience, and sustainable growth. The Retail CFO Summit 2026 unites finance leaders, innovators, and strategists who are shaping the financial future of retail. In today’s landscape, CFOs extend beyond traditional financial management to become strategic advisors, digital pioneers, and influential voices in the boardroom.
This year’s summit highlights how CFOs are steering retail businesses through AI-driven transformation, evolving regulatory landscapes, and sustainable long-term growth, while identifying new opportunities to create value and strengthen business performance across the organization.
Throughout the day, engaging panel discussions addressed key topics aligned with the summit’s core theme. The sessions featured in-depth discussions on navigating uncertainty and building resilient retail futures, unlocking strategic value through AI, rewiring finance through AI and digital transformation, and digitising compliance through the evolving GSTN ecosystem. The event underscored the importance of forward-thinking financial leadership in driving sustainable growth, strengthening resilience, and preparing the retail sector to navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Speaking about the Retail CFO Summit 2026, Kumar Rajagopalan – Chief Executive Officer, Retailers Association of India (RAI), said, “The biggest shift I’m seeing in retail finance isn’t any single tool or system — it’s how closely the CFO now needs to align with the CEO. Retail is moving too fast for finance to just report on decisions after they’re made; the CFO has to be in the room while they’re being made, reading the same signals about growth, cost, and customer behaviour as the rest of the leadership team. That alignment determines whether a retailer can move at the pace 2026 demands.
“Once that alignment exists, it stops being two departments working in parallel and becomes one shared read of the business — the CEO’s strategy and the CFO’s numbers pointed in the same direction. None of that happens on its own. It only compounds when the CFO and CEO are asking the same questions and reaching for the same answers.”
RAI Retail CFO Summit 2026
The summit featured a stellar lineup of speakers, including Ajay Kumar Pandey, CFO, Wellness Forever Medicare Limited; Dharmendra Lodha, CFO, Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands Limited; Narayan Baheti, CFO, Infiniti Retail Limited; Pankaj Chaturvedi, CFO, Shoppers Stop Limited; Pramod Dangaich, CFO, Tata Digital Private Limited; and Preetika Agrawal, CFO, Decathlon Sports India Private Limited.
Rakesh Saini, Vice President – Legal, Company Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer, Shoppers Stop: “Compliance in retail used to mean filing the right forms on time. That’s the baseline now, not the job. The real shift is that compliance functions are expected to read regulatory intent before it becomes law — to see where the direction of travel is headed on data, consumer rights, and disclosure, and build for that ahead of the mandate rather than scrambling once it lands. Retailers who treat compliance as a cost centre are going to keep getting surprised by it.”
“The volume of regulatory change hitting retail right now — data privacy, consumer protection, state-level compliance — means legal teams can’t afford to work in silos anymore. What used to be a handful of statutes to track has become a moving target across multiple regulators, each with their own timeline and interpretation. The teams managing this well aren’t necessarily the biggest ones; they’re the ones that built early warning systems instead of relying on catching problems after the fact.”
“Retail regulation in India isn’t static anymore — it’s rewriting itself in real time, across data protection, consumer protection, and e-commerce rules, often faster than internal teams can build compliance around it. The legal function that treats this as a once-a-year audit exercise is already behind. What’s changed is that legal now needs to sit upstream of business decisions, not downstream of them — flagging regulatory exposure while a strategy is being built, not after it’s already been rolled out.”
Dhananjay Patil, Senior General Manager – Legal, Croma, Infiniti Retail Limited: “RAI’s Retail CFO Summit has established itself as a pivotal annual event for the retail finance community, providing a platform to explore opportunities, discuss industry
reforms, and share best practices on achieving rapid yet sustainable growth.”
About CFO Summit
Rapid technological advancements, the growth of digital channels, increasing competition, and rising business costs are reshaping the financial landscape for businesses and creating new challenges for Chief Financial Officers (CFOs). Beyond managing risks and driving profitability, CFOs are increasingly taking on a strategic role in navigating change, enabling growth, and building financial resilience. RAI’s CFO Summit brings together CFOs, finance professionals, and CEOs from the retail industry to exchange insights, discuss emerging challenges, and explore strategies for achieving sustainable and profitable business growth. cfo.rai.net.in
About RAI:
The Retailers Association of India is the national body representing India’s retail industry across all channels and formats, from large format and specialty retail to e-commerce, quick commerce, and connected commerce businesses. RAI works with governments, regulators, and industry stakeholders to enable a competitive, innovation-friendly retail ecosystem. Through policy advocacy, industry events, research, and learning programmes, RAI builds the conditions for retail to grow, invest, and create employment at scale. India’s retail future is connected. RAI is building for it.
Visit: www.rai.net.in | Follow on Twitter: @rai_india
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