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Elevates leaders across geographies, including India, South Asia, China, Europe, SEAME
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Welcomes Ankit Mathuria as the new Chief Technology Officer; Ankit succeeds Anil Goel, who helped build OYO’s tech prowess from the ground up and will continue to counsel OYO as an advisor
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Gautam Swaroop to lead as CEO for OYO International. He will be partnered by Prasun Choudhary as the President for OYO International will represent OYO challenger markets
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These developments reiterate OYO’s commitment to offering a better experience to guests, partners, employees as it moves ahead on the path of resurgence in 2021
OYO Hotels & Homes, the world’s leading chain of hotels and homes, has announced new appointments and elevations across its global leadership in verticals including technology, supply, and product. These developments are aligned with the company’s commitment to delivering an enhanced customer, partner, and employee experience as it emerges as a resurgent brand in 2021.
Ayush Mathur, Chief Supply Officer (Global)
First global CXO elevation in 3 years
Ayush joined OYO in 2014, and since then has reimagined how OYO grows and operates. Under Ayush’s leadership, OYO catapulted the pace of onboarding properties while driving a cultural change on the supply side. He has also continuously hired, mentored and supported great global teams and talent.
Ankit Mathuria, Chief Technology Officer, OYO
An industry stalwart who launched and grew Amazon in MENA
Ankit Mathuria joins OYO as the Chief Technology Officer and a key member of the OYO CXO group. He comes with 15+ years of in-depth technical knowledge in consumer facing industries and has spent the last 7+ years at Amazon in multiple businesses with the last one as CTO for Souq (an Amazon subsidiary) in the MENA region. He brings in global working experience, having spent time in the US, India, Singapore, London and the Middle East.
Ankit succeeds Anil Goel, a distinguished leader, who has decided to pursue opportunities outside of the organisation. He will, however, continue to counsel OYO as an advisor.
Abhinav Sinha, Global COO & Chief Product Officer (Interim)
To help OYO think, build and scale as a product-first and tech-enabled organization
OYO continues to think, build and scale as a product-first company to drive its resurgence in 2021 and solve the needs of its customers and partners. To double down efforts in the product vertical, Abhinav Sinha has been announced as the interim Chief Product Officer. This will be in addition to his Global Chief Operating Officer responsibilities.
Kavikrut, Chief Growth Officer
Taking the lead to build an integrated brand and communications function at OYO
OYO’s vision is to continue to grow into a global direct to consumer brand with communication narratives that its guests, partners and public at large can relate with and be further inspired by. To enable strategic focus with well-planned execution across several key functions, OYO is bringing its global communications team and brand team together under CXO member Kavikrut.
Gautam Swaroop, CEO, OYO International
Draw from his success in China to lead a group of Challenger markets
OYO has structured its global markets into the leader and challenger units based on the opportunities and OYO’s focus on growth or profitable sustainability. OYO International will represent all OYO challenger markets and will include China and also USA and EU hotels. Gautam Swaroop, who leads the company’s operations in China, will now lead OYO International.
Prasun Choudhary, President, OYO International
Support Gautam in making OYO International successful
Gautam will be partnered by Prasun, a long-time OYOpreneur who has proven his ability to scale up OYO’s business in different counties, cultures and working environments time and again.
Rishabh Gupta, Global Capital & Positioning Strategy
To be part of OYO’s global strategy team
Rishabh Gupta, the current Head of EU Hotels, has played a critical role in leading the business in the region through the crisis while, in parallel, ensuring the business tracks to the AOP. He joined OYO in April 2018 to build Indonesia and scale OYO into one of the most loved hospitality brands in the market.
Going forward, he will take on the responsibility of ‘Global Capital & Positioning Strategy’, as part of the global strategy team reporting to Maninder Gulati, CSO. He will be working with cross functional teams, both internal and external, including the global strategic finance team, regional CEOs and the OYO Board.
Della Zhang, CFO, OYO China & Europe (Hotels)
Support Gautam & Abhishek in her expanded role
Della joined OYO three months ago as OYO China’s CFO and has already made a substantial impact with additional cash from refunds by various tax authorities. She is leading the SoX preparation in China and has brought strong rigour to the pacing process. She continues to help business teams with additional cash generated by finance teams.
Della will now expand her role to not only support Gautam as the CFO for China, but also for the hotels business in Europe.
Jessie Yang, Chro, OYO China & Europe (Hotels)
Work closely with Gautam and Dinesh in the expanded role
Jessie joined OYO China in 2018 as Corporate HR Business Partner. She steered the organisation towards its hyper growth phase by building a team from scratch across all functions from Supply Growth, Revenue, Direct Demand, Technology, Finance, HR, Legal, GR, PR etc. In her new and elevated role as the CHRO (China & Europe Hotels), Jessie will focus on driving engagement, leadership development and growth in the new scenario to guide the broader organisation towards an EBITDA positive growth. She will also partner with Dinesh Ramamurthi, CHRO, OYO Hotels & Homes, on driving the organization’s employee value proposition and building a strong culture for OYO in these markets.
Ping Wang, President & COO, OYO China
Take charge of all functions including revenue, pricing and OTAs
Ping joined OYO 1.5 years back as Head (Central SG) of OYO China and led our growth from base to 250,000 rooms in just a few months, under the OYO 2.0 model. In 2020, during COVID, Wang Ping was elevated as the Chief Supply Officer and he led the transition to China 3.0 with the zero-MG model. Under his leadership, OYO China’s gross margin turned positive in February 2020. As President & COO for OYO China now, he will take charge of all functions including Revenue, Pricing, OTAs etc.
Sharad Saxena – SVP & Chief Operating Officer (Franchise), OYO India & SA
Work closely with all RHs while continue leading the Supply function
In the past one year, Sharad has delivered exceptionally on all aspects of supply growth, network health and economics as the Chief Supply Officer for Franchise in India & South Asia. Under his leadership, OYO enabled a strong partner connect and significantly improved delight score in 2020. Sharad will continue to make further progress as SVP and Chief Operating Officer for Franchise business and he will continue to lead the Supply function.
Sharad takes over from Harshit Vyas, an OYOpreneur for 6 years, who has decided to pursue opportunities outside of OYO. During his tenure at OYO, he donned several hats such as supply leader, region head and the COO of the Franchise business in his last role.
Deepak Goyal, SVP & CFO, OVH Europe
Ensured rigorous processes on business discipline, margins & cost management
Deepak joined OYO India in March 2019 and led finance for the SMART P&L as well as all demand channels. In October 2019, he took over the role of the CFO for OVH. Over the last 15 months at OVH, he has systematically put in place rigorous processes & measures on business discipline, margins & cost management; streamlined processes and effectively managed a cross-cultural team across India, Zurich, Amsterdam & Copenhagen. During Covid, his efforts in managing cash, cutting down costs, getting government aid as per norms and driving conversations with lenders have been particularly impactful to the business.
Abhinav Ankur, SVP & Chief Strategy & Transformation Officer, India & SA
Demonstrating high impact in a variety of roles
Abhinav joined OYO in 2015 and over the years, he has played a significant role in building a partner incentive program, reducing operating costs of the operated assets, leading a cross-functional team to improve cash margins for the India business and driving smooth cross-functional coordination and enable daily data-driven decision-making. In October 2020, Abhinav was given additional charge of leading the HR function for India business and in a short time he has built a strong charter around talent development, health and wellness and employee engagement for 2021.
Varun Jain, SVP & Chief of Business Performance Management
Responsible for leading various org-wide cross-functional projects, delivering cost & cash savings
In his 5+ year long OYO journey, Varun set up all call center processes; improved sales conversion by 2x; built and led the Holidays and Travel Agent business; led multiple organization-wide projects that led to cash and cost optimization during the COVID-19 crisis, including setting up OYOs first Crisis Response Warroom for business continuity and facilitating several restructuring programs. In October 2020, Varun was given an additional charge of leading the Global Business Performance Management team, as part of which he is now co-leading the global initiative of rolling out function and market AOPs and establishing a balanced scorecard system of performance management across OYO.
Guruprasad Sankaranarayanan, SVP & COO, OYO SEAME
Built strong foundations in the region in various roles since 2019
From leading OYO’s Thailand operations to becoming Chief Operating Officer for the SEAME region, Guru has built critical foundations in the region by standardizing deal types; improving cash margins; adding top talent; and overseeing critical areas of collaboration between functions. He continues to be a thought partner for Mandar Vaidya, CEO, Southeast Asia, Middle East & Japan, OYO.
Rahul Sahni, SVP & CPO, OVH
Streamlined guest tickets during COVID; enabled high cost savings
Rahul has been the Chief Product Officer for OVH since OYO acquired the @Leisure group in 2019. His team analysed all the inbound tickets, understood the reasons, created in-depth categories and eventually built Excel-based macros for auto responses to answer each query satisfactorily and reducing TAT by 30%. Rahul and his team have enabled cost savings worth millions of Euros by reducing lead generation cost by more than 10 times.
Vineet Pandita, SVP, Engineering
Tech-nified and built strong capabilities
Vineet has been leading OYOs Technology and Product charter for the Supply and Finance functions since 2018 when he joined OYO. In the past one year, he has also led the overall Data Platform vertical and increased the pace of product delivery significantly without compromising on innovation or building sustainable capabilities for long-term impact. They have made ORBIS and associated ecosystems as the one-stop shop platform for all partner onboarding activities to simplify and standardize the Lead-to-Live process. Under Vinit’s leadership, OYO has also made strides in improving the recon challenge by introducing automation and homogeneity across regions.
Commenting on this, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder and Group CEO, OYO Hotels & Homes said, “2021 will be the year of OYO’s resurgence, as we focus on building best-in-class products and experience for our guests, partners, employees and all stakeholders of the OYO ecosystem. A strong leadership has always been instrumental at OYO to make an impact and succeed by enhancing our operational efficiency, brand love and profitability. I am confident that these leaders will keep inspiring OYOpreneurs all around the world. I’m looking forward to the OYO we will build together.”
He added, “An OYOpreneur is an OYOpreneur forever – with a heavy heart today, we will be saying goodbye to two fantastic leaders, Anil Goel and Harshit Vyas. Anil will continue to counsel OYO as an advisor and I am certain that both Anil and Harshit will continue to root for OYO even from the outside. On behalf of the entire company, I would like to thank them for being a part of our story and wish them success in their future endeavors.“
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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.
