A little over a month after Colin Browne revealed that he would be stepping down as CEO of Cascale at the end of July, the multi-stakeholder organization formerly known as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition announced this week that it has appointed Harsh Saini, a member of its board of directors, as its interim head, effective August 1.
Saini, Cascale said, will take the helm as it continues its “global search” for a permanent CEO. A longtime CSR professional at Nike and, most recently, executive vice president for sustainability and public affairs at Li & Fung, Saini will shepherd Cascale as it makes good on its 2025 strategic priorities, including those revolving around combatting climate change, promoting decent work and boosting a so-called “nature-positive” agenda for the broader fashion, textiles and travel goods industry. She is currently based in the United Kingdom after having spent decades in Asia.
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“Harsh’s appointment ensures continuity during a critical phase of implementation,” Tamar Hoek, Cascale board chair and senior policy director of sustainable fashion at Solidaridad, a civil society organization, said in a statement. “She knows our organization well, understands the landscape and brings both strategic vision and operational insight. We’re confident she will support the team and help accelerate our work on climate and decent work.”
Browne’s tenure as CEO has been a brief one, having passed its first anniversary on May 1. The Under Armour veteran was pipped to the position after a similar CEO hunt following Amina Razvi’s departure after eight years in December 2023, a few months before the organization’s rebranding. Sean Cady, a Cascale board member and vice president of sustainability, responsibility, trade and government affairs at VF Corp., which owns The North Face and Timberland, served as ad-hoc chief during the six-month interregnum.
While Browne didn’t give a reason for his exit, Cascale has framed it as a “personal choice” that followed a “pivotal period of strategic reset and renewed ambition” for the trade group. It also arrives at a time of massive volatility and uncertainty, with worsening geopolitical tumult and President Donald Trump’s flip-flopping tariffs forcing businesses to hunker down in survival mode with less of an appetite for sustainability investments that don’t immediately increase the bottom line.
“It was just going through my mind how much of the Southeast Asian supply chain that we rely on was being targeted,” Browne told Sourcing Journal a couple of days after Trump imposed massive “Liberation Day” tariffs, currently on pause, on April 2. “The poor folks that are running global supply chains within our industry are clearly going to have to earn their salary over the next few months to try and figure out how to best manage through this.”
He expressed deep concern for workers at the lowest rung of the supply chain—often left twisting in the wind when disaster strikes—saying that “we have to bear in mind, as we’re making difficult decisions about how to mitigate this, that we live and work in an ecosystem and that there are broader implications than just the financial.” Browne also touted the need to be a “little unreasonable,” raising the bar by holding the “industry and all of ourselves to a higher standard.”
“Colin’s steady leadership has been instrumental in stabilizing and refocusing Cascale over the past year,” Hoek said in a separate statement. “He has helped lay a strong foundation for what’s next and we are deeply grateful for his contributions. This is not a reset; it’s a continuation. Strong institutions don’t pause when people change; they grow.”
