In his early days growing up in Mumbai, Chandresh Malkani was like any child who liked playing cricket and soccer, watching the latest Bollywood movies, and spending time with his family. His father worked for British Airways, so the family enjoyed flying off to visit his favorite destinations like Japan and England.

But Chandresh also knew loneliness, as his brother was 10 years older than he was, which made him feel like an only child. And then, at the age of 9, he began to learn about loss.

“My uncle passed away when I was 9 years old; it was the first impactful death I ever experienced,” Chandresh recalls. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last. My father died nine months later, and then we lost my paternal grandmother nine months after that. Nine months after she passed, I expected to lose someone else I cared about. I grew to be angry and risk averse with all of this loss, dreading every nine-month interval for a while, feeling sure someone else would be taken away from me. My brother became something of a father figure to me. When our mother passed away when I was only 15, I realized I needed to take my anger about loss and turn it into something more positive.”

It was this motivation that drove the next few years of Chandresh’s life. “My mother had wanted one of us to study abroad, so I became determined to make this desire a reality,” he says. “I worked hard in school and, in her memory, I made the decision to come to the United States to earn my undergraduate degree. Realizing the opportunities that existed here, I decided to stay and make a life here.”

Chandresh has since gone on to make an amazing life for himself and his family in Chicago. He joined Kearney as a partner in April 2023 to help relaunch the firm’s Americas aviation team, building on a distinguished career in which he has spent 16 years working in strategy and engineering roles at airlines as well as more than half a decade consulting to airlines.

“Now that I have my own children, I want to be present in their lives as much as possible for them and serve as their guiding light,” he says, noting that he and his wife spend many hours during the week and weekend happily shuttling their kids to swimming, dance classes, music lessons, and other activities. “I love being a parent. The fact that I have the ability to influence someone in their formative years and help to make something out of them is an amazing feeling. They can learn from my mistakes and my successes alike. I love time with my family, whether we’re off on a ski weekend or just enjoying the simple things in our neighborhood. I certainly don’t take parenting lightly, but being a parent has definitely helped me see things in a different perspective and make me more lighthearted.”

For Chandresh, having daughters makes him feel a sense of obligation to be the best parent and mentor he can be. “I grew up around strong women, and they left an imprint. As a society we need to do more to create women leaders; they make all of us better leaders.” Beyond all of the usual mentorship, training, and coaching that all Kearney partners engage in, Chandresh is also on the Business Leadership Board at his alma mater, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Ultimately, Chandresh’s background made him the leader he is today. “I understand that, in business and in your career, there will always be highs and lows, and how we respond to each helps determine our successes and failures,” he concludes.