Arup Soans is an expert in Business Strategy, Sports Marketing and New Media. A Sports Business Consultant to events as large as FIFA World Cups to grassroots programs, operating in sports like swimming, sailing, football and other Olympic disciplines. 

Arup was part of the Local Organising Committee of the FIFA Under 17 World Cup India 2017 as Head of Marketing, managing a team of 45 full-time staff and 200 volunteers. The 17th edition of the tournament ended up raising the most sponsorship money to date and being the highest ever attended FIFA youth competition.

Arup is currently Chief Executive at KiteTalks and Board Member at SportiFan. He is also the Founding Trustee of a nonprofit initiative, Give for Sports Foundation; setup to help existing sports NGOs and underprivileged athletes build awareness and raise funds. Arup is a visiting faculty at Global Institute of Sports Business, Mumbai and XAVIER-EMLYON Business School, Bhubaneswar, has authored two sports courses created by Rajasthan Royals’ Royal School of Business and is a mentor to startups within the thinQsport program run by Marwah Sports.

He has worked at New York based Major League Soccer and Perform Group (now Stats Perform). Arup was also part of the Organising Committee for the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune, India and was part of senior management teams at organisations operating in the IT, retail and marine industries as well.

Arup is the founder of India’s first sports business networking group that has over seven thousand members across multiple cities and growing. He has a newsletter called Soans on Sports and is an expert columnist on SportsKeeda.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in management studies from University of Mumbai, a master of commerce degree in business environment and practices from University of Pune and is the first Indian to hold a master’s degree in sports business from New York University.

Arup is a certified scuba diver, amateur golfer, budding musician and crypto-investor.