Where Insight Meets Intuition: Kanwalpreet Walia On Building Brands Women Carry

As Business Head of the Women’s Bag Division at Titan Company, Kanwalpreet Walia works at a point where sentiment and strategy constantly intersect. Accessories and fragrance may live in the realm of personal expression, but her approach to them is grounded in consumer insight, operational discipline, and long-term brand building. Over the years, she has helped translate everyday desires into products that feel intuitive and relevant; less about chasing trends, more about understanding how women live, move, and choose.

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Her leadership sits comfortably between instinct and intention. The categories she oversees are emotional by nature, but she approaches them with the clarity of someone who sees lifestyle not as indulgence, but as behaviour; something to be observed, decoded, and shaped over time.

ELLE: Accessories and fragrance are deeply emotional categories. How do you balance desire and aspiration with building a strong business?

Kanwalpreet Walia (KW): If you are deeply glued to the moment of truth and co-create with the customer at the centre, stitching anything for stated or unstated desires comes naturally. At Titan, brands are built around this simple yet powerful knowing. 

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ELLE: Has your idea of success changed as you’ve grown into leadership roles?

KW: Not really, but yes, with experience, some truths get more pronounced. However, the fundamentals of what you believe in stay the same. I have continued to believe that great businesses are a combination of logic and magic. What starts with magic or a spark of an idea is perfected through rigour and logic.

ELLE: What’s one misconception people often have about building and scaling lifestyle categories like bags and fragrance?

KW:That lifestyle categories like bags and fragrance are driven purely by aesthetics or trends. In reality, they are built on deep consumer insight, operational rigour, and long-term brand consistency.

ELLE: How important is instinct in leadership, especially in categories driven by emotion and personal taste?

KW: It is very important to have instinct, especially in fashion (as many decisions are about shaping new needs or latent needs and desires), but it must be balanced with a clear understanding of market trends and consumer demand.

ELLE: Looking back, what experiences most shaped your approach to leadership and decision-making?

KW: Every time I have gone back to users of the category and had interactions that were unfiltered, it gave me a new nuance to build on. When we launched IRTH, we met women from all walks of life. Even within a commoditised category like handbags, those interactions brought out nuances that were so real, different, and unmet. Such interactions inspired the launch of our Mother’s bag and detachable bag organisers. IRTH created magic with new use cases, but at its core were women seeking better solutions.

ELLE: The ELLE Collective celebrates individuals shaping culture and commerce. What does being part of this list mean to you at this point in your journey?

KW: It feels surreal—in the best way. A pause to celebrate how far my individual journey has come, perfect mix of gratitude, confidence and a little wink to the universe.

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