The Journey of Building an Indian Legal Brand from the Ground Up Ashwarya Sharma

Some journeys don't begin with ambition. They begin with survival. Ashwarya Sharma comes from Kashipur, a small industrial town in Uttarakhand. “I was an average student,” he says honestly. “Not because I didn’t want to do well, but because life sometimes doesn't give you that space.”

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There were years when even sitting for school exams depended on whether fees had been cleared. During final exams, names would be called out, students asked to leave the classroom because payments were pending. Those moments stay with you. They quietly shape you.

After Class 12, Ashwarya moved to Delhi. He enrolled in B.Com at Delhi University and simultaneously took up the Company Secretary (CS) course. That decision, he says, unknowingly laid the foundation for his legal career.

"Law found me before I found law," he says.

Discovering law and himself

CS classes introduced him to something transformative – teachers who didn’t just teach subjects, but shaped thinking.

He went on to clear the DU Law Faculty entrance and joined the evening batch, juggling mandatory CS training in the mornings. Long commutes, packed schedules, and classmates often twice his age became part of everyday life.

While he was in law college, some of his peers, who used to work in Big Four firms, referred him. Ashwarya joined Deloitte in 2015, almost by accident, as an indirect tax professional.

"I wanted corporate law. Indirect tax just happened." But even on one day, something was clear. "I knew I wouldn't do a job forever," he mentions.

Choosing risk over comfort

Early in his career, a question stayed front and centre. Why should ambition be limited to working only for foreign firms? When you are young, you think differently. You want to build something of your own. With time, thinking became calmer, but that question never left his mind.