Aakash Educational Services appoints Alka Garg as its CFO

Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL) on Monday announced the appointment of Alka Garg as its new chief financial officer (CFO).

Garg has more than 22 years of experience across listed companies and startups. Prior to this, she was the CFO of Yum Restaurants India and has also worked with Siemens, GreyOrange, Bharti Airtel, and Deloitte.

“She will lead AESL's finance function, spearhead financial strategies, improve efficiency, build a robust governance structure, and assist AESL in achieving its projected future growth,” the company said in a statement.


Its former CFO, Vipan Joshi, resigned last October amid a wave of senior-level exits at the coaching centre operator. The move had followed the exit of managing director and chief executive Deepak Mehrotra, who resigned last August after serving in the role for a little over a year.

In the test prep segment, Aakash competes with the likes of Bodhi Tree-backed Allen Career Institute, Physicswallah, and Unacademy. Aakash hasn't filed its results since FY23. It had reported an 82% rise in total profit, at Rs 79.5 crore, for the financial year ended March 2022, while its operating revenue during the period had grown 45% to Rs 1,421 crore.

According to the company, it runs more than 415 centres and currently has over 400,000 students.

Recently, the Supreme Court of India refused to restrain Aakash from going ahead with its Rs 140 crore rights issue, which forms the second tranche of its proposed Rs 240 crore fundraise.

Think & Learn, parent of the troubled edtech Byju's, which owns a minority stake in Aakash, had challenged the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal's February 3 order allowing the coaching centre operator to go ahead with the rights issue.