Hotels — A Collective Decision

The decision to enter hotel ownership and management in 1998 did not come from one person — it came from the group. Mahendra, Shalini, Dave, Deepak, and the leadership team had been studying diversification together through the St. Thomas programs and their own strategic planning. Hotels made sense: the same formula that worked in real estate and restaurants translated directly. Dave took the lead in identifying and executing the first hotel acquisitions, but the direction was a shared one.