Aahna, regarded as India’s first female sports lawyer, entered the field in 2011, with no roadmap or mentor to follow. She founded AM Sports Law & Management Co. in 2017, and now leads a sports law and strategy team of seven across Mumbai and New Delhi, built on quality, depth and ethics.
That instinct comes from sport. Selected for India’s Under-19 women’s cricket squad, she never lost the athlete’s habit of out-preparing everyone else, thinking like a team, and staying composed under pressure, which still influences how she handles each matter. She strives to anticipate and assess a problem before it arrives, and to structure around it in advance.
Her career highlights include:
· Enabling acquisition of MENA region media rights for La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 and acquiring Super League Kerala’s commercial rights for Sports.com;
· Representing Quidich Innovation Labs in transactions with the ICC and Apple on a first-of-its-kind Apple Vision Pro app;
· Executing mandates for the Caribbean Premier League, Global Super League and setting up leagues including 72TheLeague, Indian Racing Festival and Ultimate Table Tennis;
· Working with Chennaiyin F.C. and CricViz Ltd.;
· Advising the Indian Pickleball Association and National Rifle Association of India;
· Advising athletes including Gautam Gambhir, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma and Manasi Joshi;
· Serving as Vice-Chairperson of India’s National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel and sole lawyer on the committee re-drafting the National Code Against Age Fraud in Sport;
· Driving anti-doping education reforms, including the ‘Know Your Medicine’ app;
· Contributing, as one of two Indian experts, to the UNODC Global Report on Corruption in Sport;
· Mentoring through SIGA, teaching at FIFA/CIES and sitting as an advisor to Women in Sport India.
Aahna started in a field that barely existed, and now builds the commercial, regulatory and ethical foundations on which Indian sport and gaming can compete globally.
