Skechers CEO Rahul Vira on the 2025 Walkathon: 'Both Kartik Aaryan and Ananya Panday are high on energy...'

Rahul Vira, CEO, Skechers South Asia Pvt. Ltd is swelling with pride that his Skechers Walkathon initiative has grown by leaps and bounds over the years. And he has even spoken about it with all excitement and euphoria. The one word that comes to his mind is ‘Fantabulous.’

Vira shared, “You know, it’s so exciting to see that, you know, the whole thing. It’s so exciting to see that the whole platform that we built is growing year on year, more people are taking it up as part of their active lifestyle."

When asked about how the initiative began, Rahul said, “So it goes back many years. When we launched our walk in shoes into the market, we kind of created this whole, you know, category in the market with our go walk series of footwear. 
And those days, we could see there were marathons that were happening, but nobody was talking about a walkathon. And that’s how the idea came in, that let’s, how can we bring in the community together? We’re you know, while it is a form of exercise, but it is also where people can come together as family, friends together and build a large, you know, community where everybody is focussing on one particular thing, that is, getting active.”

On selecting the names for the ambassadors

So both Kartik and Ananya are high on energy, youthful, both of them connect with them very large part of the audience across different spectrum of the society, and that’s what, as you know, part of the Walkathon, that’s also our thing about having that community across a large spectrum. So there’s a set of right people.