Sumit Gandhi

Sumit Gandhi is a Mumbai-based entrepreneur best known as Chairman and Managing Director of ABEC (Asian Business Exhibitions & Conferences), India's leading private trade-fair organizer. A Chartered Accountant who holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Bombay, he left a career in finance to co-found ABEC alongside his younger brother Manish Gandhi, building on the family's business background with a focus on strategic thinking and customer relationships.

Under Gandhi's leadership, ABEC grew from small Oil & Gas sector events into a company that conceptualizes and runs 70+ shows across roughly 10 verticals in 19 major Indian cities, with offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi and 400+ employees. The company expanded into education, property and security exhibitions around 2004 and into the architecture-and-design segment in 2006, whose flagship show ACETECH became one of the largest building-materials, design and architecture expos in the world. ABEC has been described as India's largest private exhibition organizer (second largest overall after industry bodies CII and IEIA).

ABEC's success attracted UK-listed trade-fair group ITE Group PLC (later Hyve Group), which took a 28.3% stake in December 2012 and then bought a further 31.7% for about £14 million (≈US$21 million) in November 2015, taking its holding to roughly 60%. Sumit and Manish Gandhi retained the remaining ~40% and continued in their roles as Chairman and COO respectively. As of a January 2024 interview, Gandhi remained Chairman & Managing Director, speaking publicly about hybrid events, sustainability, and technology (VR/AR, AI analytics) as the future of the exhibitions industry.

Separately from ABEC's core business, Sumit Gandhi (typically together with his brother Manish) deploys personal capital as an angel investor into early-stage Indian startups, concentrated in consumer internet and design-adjacent categories.

• Invests personal money as an angel, typically alongside brother Manish Gandhi ("promoters of ABEC"), in exchange for equity.
• Concentrates on early / seed stage Indian startups; observed check size around US$100K (Omnikart seed).
• Sector tilt toward internet retail, online marketplaces, and interior-design / lifestyle tech — categories that overlap with ABEC's own exhibition verticals (interiors, design, consumer/retail).
• Backs founder-led ventures, including repeat/serial founders (e.g., Bharat Sethi of PosterGully across multiple ventures).
• Willing to move beyond passive angel checks to outright acquisition when a portfolio company fits the ABEC ecosystem (the PosterGully buyout).