In the food business, a brand may be what customers see, but behind every successful restaurant operation is a much larger engine: people, processes, execution and the ability to scale.
For Karanjeet Sahi, CEO of Ghost Kitchens India , that engine has been at the centre of a career spanning more than 15 years in the food and beverage industry. His journey has taken him from operational leadership roles to working with some of India’s well-known food brands and eventually leading a company focused on building and scaling restaurant businesses.
Learning the business from the ground up
Sahi’s early career was based on running restaurants.
He didn’t start with a purely strategic position but created an experience base through managing restaurants, customer experience, process improvement and team development. This provided him with an intimate knowledge of how to run a restaurant business beyond just the brand name.
Over time, this operational experience grew into a broader skill set – building teams, processes and expanding businesses.
The Rebel Foods years
One of the defining chapters of his career came at Rebel Foods, where Sahi took on progressively larger responsibilities across operations, business management and regional leadership.
During this period, he was involved in the launch and expansion of brands including Oven Story Pizza, Faasos, Behrouz Biryani and Mandarin Oak across Punjab, Haryana and Mumbai.
The challenge was not simply launching a restaurant brand in a new market. It was about creating the operational systems, teams and execution frameworks required to make those businesses work at scale.
That experience became an important part of Sahi’s evolution from an operations-focused leader into a business leader.
From building operations to building businesses
Sahi eventually moved to Ghost Kitchens India as Chief Business Officer, where his responsibilities expanded into business growth, franchise expansion, strategic partnerships and operational excellence.
Here, the focus shifted from managing operations to building the larger business engine, expanding the portfolio, improving profitability and developing scalable models for growth.
Now, leading Ghost Kitchens India
Today, as CEO of Ghost Kitchens India, Sahi is responsible for the company’s vision, strategy and nationwide expansion. The company operates across multiple food and hospitality formats and includes brands such as Starboy Pizza, Big Fat Monk, and New York Waffles & Dinges. His work spans multiple formats from cloud kitchens and quick-service restaurants to dine-in businesses with a focus on creating category-defining food brands and building profitable franchise opportunities.
His expertise covers everything from P&L management and franchise development to strategic partnerships, brand building and business transformation.
But perhaps the most interesting part of his journey is how closely his leadership philosophy connects to where he started.
Start with execution. Build the right people. Create systems that can scale. Then turn those systems into businesses.
That approach continues to shape Sahi’s work as he looks at the next phase of India’s food and hospitality ecosystem , one where technology, franchising and scalable business models are increasingly changing how food brands are built.
For Sahi, the journey from restaurant operations to the CEO’s office has been less about one big leap and more about 15+ years of learning how businesses work from the inside out
