From Hotel Lobby to Applied Data & AI: What 20 Years Taught Me
I started my career in the lobby of an Oberoi Hotel in India. Not in a strategic planning office. Not in a SaaS business. Not in an investment or family office. In the lobby, learning how a hotel actually works. How a guest's experience is shaped by a hundred small decisions before they ever reach the front desk. And how people work together to genuinely take care of other people, heartfelt, authentic and uniquely human.
That start taught me something that has informed every role since:
The human experience is everything.
Every data model, every AI product, every pricing algorithm ultimately connects back to a person and a personal moment created. The leaders who forget that build clever technology and applications that nobody uses.
The analytical turn.
Cornell changed how I saw the industry. Predictive Analytics, CRM, data-driven marketing: these concepts opened a lens I did not know existed. At IDeaS (a wholly owned subsidiary of SAS Institute), I spent over a decade applying that lens, building a global partner ecosystem, prototyping analytics products, and learning something that business schools often overlook:
Growth through partnerships requires you to make other people successful before you make yourself successful.
We launched products in markets from China to South America, and every expansion reinforced the same lesson.
The opportunity I could not refuse.
When Expedia Group approached me, the proposition was simple: the vast majority of hotels worldwide are being left behind in demand forecasting and pricing. Do you want to help solve that? I said yes. That question became a six-year chapter.
The thesis was democratization. Revenue management had long been a discipline reserved for large chain hotels with dedicated teams and expensive technology. We believed it could be made accessible to every property: the 50-room boutique in Portugal, the vacation rental owner in Colorado, the independent hotel in Southeast Asia. The result was a suite of data and AI solutions adopted at scale across the industry.
But the lesson was not about the product. It was about conviction. There were quarters when the numbers were not there. There were internal debates about whether this market was worth pursuing. Every time, we came back to the same belief: if the technology works, if it genuinely helps, then the market will follow. It did.
The operator's education.
Moving to Lighthouse as COO was a different kind of challenge. A PE-backed company valued at over $1B, operating across Ghent, Madrid, Dallas, Denver, and London. My role was to bring operational rigor to a fast-growing business: formalize M&A, build a growth operations function, unify the brand, and drive accountability.
The biggest lesson from that chapter was about empathy in execution. Scaling through acquisition means integrating teams with different cultures, different histories, and different definitions of success. The spreadsheet says "synergy". The reality is people navigating uncertainty. The leaders who get integration right are the ones who listen more than they direct, at least in the early months.
What I carry forward.
A couple of chapters in, a few things have become clear to me:
The best tech is invisible. It changes how people make decisions without making them feel like they are using a tool. The goal is not AI adoption. The goal is better decisions.
The best teams are built on hunger and humility. I have seen brilliant teams fail because arrogance crept in, and scrappy teams win because they stayed curious. The balance between conviction and curiosity is the hardest thing in leadership, and the most important.
Values and DNA matters. I believe in travel because I believe it is a force for good. The connections it creates, the understanding it builds, the economic opportunity it distributes. These things matter. The interesting part I have learned working with Private Equity Firms with businesses across industries is that these values are not unique or exclusive to the travel industry. You know it when you feel and experience the values and DNA of the team. It is when you are part of these special teams you realize that the right ideas, the right people, and the right investments can shape the trajectory of a business for a generation.
That is why I am still here. And, the pursuit continues.
