OYO Hotels & Homes, one of the world’s leading hotel chains today announced four key elevations in its India senior leadership effective October 1, 2020 – Ankit Gupta to CEO, Frontier & Workspaces, Harshit Vyas to COO, India & South Asia, Franchise Business, Abhinav Ankur to Chief Strategy & Transformation Officer and Anuj Bhatnagar to CFO, Business. The decision is in line with the company’s continuous commitment to strengthening its leadership bench to achieve its goals of sustained growth, maintaining operational excellence, delivering on its people priorities, and ensuring OYO’s long-term success.
Ankit Gupta joined OYO last year as COO & SVP, Frontier Businesses, and is now CEO, Frontier & Workspaces. Ankit led the Self-Operated portfolio (including OYO Townhouse), OYO LIFE, OYO Campus, and OYO Home, and strengthened OYO’s capabilities in these businesses by driving business outcomes. In the past few months, when the Frontier business model profitability was affected by the pandemic, Ankit led from the front to ensure business turnaround and put them on the path to growth while prioritizing OYOs partners’ interests, which ultimately enhances OYO’s offerings to guests. In his enhanced role, Ankit will continue to drive the long-term success of the Frontier businesses while taking charge of OYO Workspaces, which presents a big opportunity among established and new companies as well as independent professionals as the pandemic continues to redefine office spaces and increases demand for co-working spaces.
One of the youngest CXOs in the hospitality industry, Harshit Vyas is now COO, India & South Asia, Franchise Business. He is one of the first 10 OYOpreneurs and recently completed over 6 years with OYO. He started as a Business Development Manager in Gurgaon and later helped OYO in making a foray into international markets by setting up the local team in Malaysia. As Region Head for West, he led a large team and made the region one of the fastest-growing and most profitable business units for OYO. In his most recent role in the last year, as Chief Business Officer (CBO) for Franchise business, he worked collaboratively with Region Heads and led teams across Hubs to ensure synergy and a healthy competitive spirit among all hubs. During the entire lockdown period, Harshit ensured that all on-ground teams were motivated and meaningfully engaged.
During his tenure at OYO, Harshit has demonstrated a clear ability to collaborate with central business leaders and drive outsized outcomes on the ground right from OYO Secure penetration to improvement in guest experiences. In his new role, Harshit will continue to work closely with Rohit Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer, India & South Asia, to drive outcomes through regional teams, help OYO recover faster from the COVID-19 crisis and make the company move forward as one team. Abhinav Ankur, Chief Strategy & Transformation Officer has been with OYO since 2015 and consistently delivered in all his roles in the organisation. During his last role as Head, Strategy, OYO India & SA, Abhinav worked closely with all leaders on cross-functional strategic initiatives to drive sustainable EBITDA for the region. In the past few months under Abhinav’s leadership, OYO India & SA was able to further drive OYOs technology-first approach for seamless partner and customer experience; make continuous improvement in partner trust and customer experience scores; and, stay focused on building online demand channels.
In addition to continuing the above, Abhinav will now lead OYO’s Human Resources function for India & SA to continue steering OYO’s people agenda and help OYO stay as an employer of choice for existing and new OYOpreneurs in the months to come. As a result, all HR teams and leaders supporting India businesses (Franchise, Frontier, Workspaces, Weddingz etc) will now work closely with Abhinav. HR leaders who support global functions will continue to work with Dinesh Ramamurthi, Chief Human Resources Officer, OYO Hotels & Homes. Anuj Bhatnagar, CFO, Business joined OYO as VP Finance for Franchise and Demand Channels in January 2020. In a short time, he worked closely with Franchise & Demand Channel leaders to drive significant structural business changes and higher cost efficiencies, improve cash margins and strengthen business tax processes. He joined OYO after a successful stint with Bharti Airtel Ltd, where he played a diverse role over 13 years covering Regional Finance, business finance, FP&A etc. He served as the Global FP&A Head in his last role before joining OYO. Going forward, all business finance heads for Franchise, Weddingz, Frontier and Workspaces will report to Anuj and work closely with him to deliver on business metrics and build a more financially prudent organizational framework.
Commenting on this, Rohit Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer, India & South Asia, said, At OYO, we have always worked towards nurturing meritocracy across levels and are proud to have resilient, robust and diversified leaders. The role enhancement for Ankit, Harshit, Abhinav & Anuj are further steps in this direction. Their inspiring leadership in the pre-COVID times helped us drive sustainable business growth in the region. When the pandemic started, they helped OYO balance several priorities towards our customers, partners and colleagues and respond to the crisis with agility, innovation, and deftness that was unheard-of. In their enhanced roles, they will help OYO build on its core strengths, capitalize on the green shoots of recovery and come out stronger from the pandemic. I have no doubt that we will continue to benefit from their guidance, as they keep inspiring many more OYOpreneurs and create a lasting impact on not just OYO, but also on the hospitality landscape at large. About OYO Hotels & Homes Opening its doors in 2013, OYO Hotels & Homes, a young hotel startup, today is the world’s leading chain of hotels and homes. OYO today operates in over 800 cities in 80 countries, including the U.S., Europe, U.K., India, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Japan.
