IHCL has acquired a 51% stake in ANK Hotels & Pride Hospitality for ₹204 Cr, bringing 135 The Clarks Hotels & Resorts properties under its wing. This strategic move supercharges IHCL’s midscale Ginger brand, targeting 250+ hotels soon amid India’s booming tourism surge.
My day started yesterday with visiting a brilliant Startup Founder’s residence to handover a small box of Diwali goodies , followed by the convocation ceremony for three of my postgraduate cohorts in the campus of Indian School of Hospitality. Somehow I am not very fond of sending gifts through someone else, so I start my day early in the morning and wrap up late in the evening. Shaking a hand, hugging a friend remains mission critical for me in the era of technology, where people crave human connects. Mygate does a fantastic job of sharing gate entry approvals for your friends and families. I had many on my MyPasses in the app for the past two days.
I met Aryavir Kumar at the Aralias club yesterday, later in the evening. We discussed the structure of the IHCL x Clarks Hotels deal, congratulated him on that. He’s silently becoming the young leader icon in the Indian hospitality industry and invited for most of the marquee panel discussions in large events to share his stories. I walked to the club, he walked to the club, both of us carried a little something in our hands for Diwali gifting but we kept it aside for the next two hours to discuss the way forward for his #brands and #people strategies. We identified probable collaboration ideas within our common network (BTW, our common network is quite bragworthy), some industry #innovations, some extraordinary people who’re soon leaving their existing employers and the LinkedIn strategy for the brand.
We discussed travels, mountains, contents, long walks, pickleball, over a chilled beer 🍺 (the lemon 🍋 slice will give away the brand name) and shared a plate of stir-fried tofu. The young hospitality icon served me the tofu before I could finish the chunks, he has a hand of an expert. We switched our topic to Restaurant P&L, Hotel Development and Hotel 🏨 room designs before he walked me to the car. I saw the young leader who leads with humility taking a short walk back to his home (he could have brought his car to the club, but he didn’t). The clear cut leadership quality of Authentic leadership.
He promised me to share his #collaboration story which is making a lot of headlines these days with my students on campus soon in absolute candor. I know exactly what to ask him during the fireside chat.
#leadership #hospitality #collaboration