H&M India\'s head Janne Einola quits the company five years after launching the brand in India

New Delhi: Janne Einola, the India head of Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), is leaving the company five years after he launched the world’s second largest fashion brand in India.

Einola’s departure comes at a challenging time when retailers including H&M in India are battling low sales due to an unprecedented pandemic that has severely hurt fashion brands.

Einola, country manager for India, is currently serving his notice period and he is scheduled to leave H&M by the end of October, two people familiar with the development said. They said Einola is leaving H&M for personal reasons and will join his wife and kids in Helsinki and take a break before deciding on his next move.

An H&M veteran of 22 years, Einola moved to India in July 2015, months before H&M rolled out its first outlet in the country in New Delhi’s Select Citywalk mall.

H&M did not immediately respond to an email seeking comments on the departure and we will update the story whenever we get a response from them.

He is credited with aggressively expanding H&M in India and the Swedish retailer has so far opened about 50 outlets and he is considered to be instrumental in signing up an exclusive online deal with Myntra.com that has proved to be a big positive for H&M in India, another person said.

For example, H&M clocked Rs 22 crores of sales and was ahead of all the international brands in the first 48 hours of Myntra’s mega discounting event in June, right after India allowed e-commerce companies to sell non-essential items including fashion and lifestyle products.