Industry Advisory Board MBA Tourism

Mr. Rajesh Dogra

Organization: Air India

Designation: CXO-Air India, Board Member-AISATS. Chief Customer Exp Officer & Global Head-Airport Ops-Air India

Rajesh is an experienced and highly passionate customer services and operations leader, and a veteran in incubating and implementing large, complex public services programs enabled by innovative use of IT and digital technologies. He has diverse, rich, and global experience in managing public services, operations, IT Projects and business strategies across multiple domains including aviation, government services, capital markets, and retail. Leading some of the path-breaking public services programs such as Passport Seva, globally for TCS in partnership with the Ministry of External Affairs, Mr. Dogra as its Global Program Director has played a pivotal role in the transformation of passport service delivery to Indian citizen’s world over making it one of the most awarded public service programs in India. With diverse experience in incubating and leading very large high-impact IT-enabled programs bringing immense value, growth, and transformation, he has led award-winning domestic and global programs. He possesses skills encompassing customer experience, aviation, program management, IT services management, financial services, business operations, change management, business development, and project execution across geographies both in India and abroad. He specializes in building and nurturing organizations and has led large teams in several projects as incubating start-ups from scratch and transforming ideas to execution running multi-locational diverse IT & business operations. With robust program management skills and a vision to have customers as the 'real focus' of everything he does, he has helped in bringing the benefits of eGovernance to the doorsteps of common citizens in India. After Tata Group acquired Air India in 2022, Mr. Dogra was appointed as the Chief Customer Experience Officer and Global Head of Airport Operations for Air India worldwide. In this role, he is responsible for the complete transformation of Air India’s customer experience and airport operations worldwide. Despite the massive global landscape and several inherent challenges, Mr. Dogra has managed to deliver exponential value within a very short period of time. With highly improved 'on time performance' of Air India, drastic change in the culture with a focus on customer centricity and customer obsession, Mr. Dogra is building a robust governance structure, bringing in IT innovations, and better processes and incubating a winning team that will help in making Air India a world-class airline soon.

Mr. Neetan Chopra

Organization: IndiGo

Designation: Chief Digital and Information Officer

A leader with a three-decade track record of delivering business value and transformation using technology and innovation. Passionate advocate of ‘being digital’ as opposed to just ‘doing digital’ and helping enterprises compete in the digital era. Recognized by Silicon Valley’s Constellation Research into BT150 (Business Transformation 150), which is a global elite list of top executives leading innovative business transformation efforts. On the Board of multiple technology start-ups and VCs helping bring digital advisory to entrepreneurship. Passionate about arousing curiosity and interest in student communities on digital and its impact. Guest lecturer at INSEAD Business School in Dubai, Carnegie Mellon University in Silicon Valley, visiting MBA students of Villanova University, USA, IIT Mumbai entrepreneurship summit, and Adjunct Professor at Botho University, Africa. Envisioned and built from ground up a global Innovation ecosystem for the Emirates Group. This included (a) an Innovation Lab in Dubai (b) Data science lab at Oxford, UK (c) Technology Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, Silicon Valley (d) Intelak, a travel accelerator (e) Dubai Futures Accelerator and Aviation x Labs. This ecosystem acts as an outside-in platform which underpins transformation at Emirates Group. Experienced in technology related M&A and investment activity. Delivered the divestment of the Mercator business to Warburg Pincus, one of the World’s top 10 Private Equity firms. My TEDx talk titled ‘neural incumbents. Distributed horizons on the character of enterprises in the digital era and beyond. A strong passion for continuous learning. MCA from NIT Trichy, MBA from Bradford, Executive Education with London Business School and St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Mr. Amit Chanana

Organization: Dnata Travel Group

Designation: Managing Director

Amit Chanana is Managing Director of Dnata Travel Group (Emirates Group Company). He is an accomplished business leader with extensive experience in international business development, turnaround assignments, change and transformation programs, mergers and acquisitions. His inimitable style of leadership, combined with his sharp focus on market share acquisition through differentiated customer value proposition has helped him achieve new milestones and set new benchmarks in every company he has worked with. In a career spanning 22+ years, Amit has held several leading positions across all continents and multiple industries like Travel, Financial services, Outsourcing, Consulting and Retail. An outstanding people manager, Amit has an entrepreneurial style of management that is a blend of enthusiasm and dynamism. He tends to focus on people's strengths to bring out the best in them. 'Let’s make things better' is his motto and he applies it to all aspects of his life with complete passion.

Mr. Chirag Agarwal

Organization: TravClan

Designation: Co-Founder

Mr. Chirag Agarwal Entrepreneur at heart, he is a Co-founder of TravClan. He brings with him 10+ years of experience across startups and consulting firms, including OYO, TravelTriangle, and Monitor Deloitte. He has done B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Roorkee and masters/ MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. His current venture TravClan (started in 2018) is a result of his observations and understanding of problems (hence opportunities) faced by travel agents & suppliers (DMCs, tour operators, hotels, etc.) around the world Leveraging industry experience and via strong tech execution, TravClan is making discovery (community) and transactions (fintech), between agents and suppliers, as transparent and efficient as possible. The company has offices in multiple cities in India and has a global footprint with a presence in UAE and Singapore.

Mr. Brijesh Modi

Organization: Thomas Cook (India) Limited

Designation: President & Chief Financial Officer

A CFO with a vision of Delighting the Customer, consistently raising the bar for superlative deliverance, Brijesh leads by example.

Mr Brijesh Modi is a Chartered Accountant of batch 1998 and has completed a General Management Programme from IIM Calcutta. He brings 24 years of diverse experience in the avenues of Strategy, Business Partnering, Commercial, Accounting, Audit, Controlling, Taxation, Treasury and Administration.

As the CFO, Brijesh has successfully partnered with the Managing Director and CEO in the turnaround of the company. He has revamped finance & administration functions and pioneered culture and perception changes, brought about more focus on the vision and values of the Organisations he has worked with.

During Covid 19, Travel and Tourism was one of the worst affected sectors. Brijesh, as the CFO of the Company played a pivotal role in cost rationalisation, managing the liquidity, relationship with stakeholders and driving performance which was successfully achieved.

Brijesh strongly believes in Business Partnering which strengthened the ties between the finance and commercial teams that enabled the company to improve its bottom-line. Controlling was strengthened. Talent management completed and brought speed in execution. Brijesh has been instrumental in formalising a GRC unit in the company. He was identified as a SPOC to manage the complex sale of the company to the new shareholder and thereafter led the process of shareholder change from the finance and compliance purview. Brijesh led the corporate restructuring initiatives such as hive-off of a noncore unit from the company and buyback of shares leading to value maximisation. Exhibited strong communication, negotiation, perseverance, conflict management, analytical & people management skills which gave tangible benefits to the company. Worked with loss making to profit making companies, Foreign MNC (UK & Swiss) to Indian MNC, listed to private limited companies, B2B to B2C business models, strategic shareholder to private equity, shared service set-up, automobile to tourism to foreign exchange industries. Brijesh has diverse experience, both at a divisional level as well as corporate level. He works directly with the Chairman of the Board and the Audit Committee Chairman. He manages Board and Audit Committee meetings. His previous experience has entailed working at an international level with foreign bosses and colleagues and has managed an ex-pat Swiss subordinate. For his exemplary performance, Brijesh was awarded as one of Top 100 “Most Influential CFOs” in India, by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), 2015. He has been the recipient of Roll of Honour award as also the Fellowship Award for Excellence, twice from his Organisations.

Brijesh’s passion to excel, his ability to turn every challenge into an opportunity, his vision and strategic direction, sets him apart.

Mr. Manoj Samuel

Organization: Riya Travel and Tours India Pvt Ltd

Designation: CEO & Director

Mr. Manoj Samuel is a doyen in Aviation Travel & Tourism Sector. In his career spanning more than two decades in the travel & aviation sector, he has played diverse roles. Starting from Operations in Aviation Sector to Agency Sales for GDS, enabled him to connect with the market and understand the potential for growth and analyze the future trends of this sector. These insights empowered him to play a key role in his current organization. He is a technocrat interested in integrating modern technology into making tasks simpler. Integrating his interest along with rich experience and insights into the industry, he has been instrumental in the tech advancements at Riya Group. He is pretty agile in terms of his skills, which enables him to don various hats from being a CEO & Director for Riya - The Travel Expert, to heading pivotal verticals like Human Resources, Marketing, Design & Tech Innovation.

If you talk about academic achievements & personal interest, he holds a Master's Degree in Business Management and is passionate about cycling and capturing moments through his lens. He keeps on challenging himself and others in his team, to work towards enabling team members to grow and push them out of their comfort zone to achieve their true potential—a true leader with a vision to reach new milestones/heights collectively as a team.

Mr. Kanwer Deep Singh

Organization: TRAVELBULLZ.COM

Designation: Founder & President

Mr. K.D. Singh is the founder and President of TravelBullz. Mr. Singh holds Master’s degree with marketing as specialization from IMI New Delhi. A professional turned entrepreneur in 2010, has proven track record of start-ups & scaling up business. He has more than 25 years of rich & diverse experience in online Travel (B2B and B2C space), Telecom, Logistics, FMCG & Real Estate consulting. He has served companies like Thomas Cook, DOTW, Essar Cell phone, FedEx, Colliers Jardine. He is best described as a leader with in depth knowledge, clarity on his vision for future, knows the pulse of the market and invests in human capital. Since 2010, under Mr. Singh’s leadership TravelBullz emerged as one of the best B2B online destination management company. A strong professional leadership built across the organization which now employs over 400 people. Clear guidelines, Objectivity of the individual aspiration with the collective organizational goal mark TravelBullz today.

Mr. Ashish Sidhra

Organization: Alike.io

Designation: Co-Founder

Ashish is the Co-founder of Alike.io, the global social marketplace for travel content creators launched in collaboration with Dubai Tourism. A passionate promoter of creator economy in Travel and an avid traveller himself, Ashish has been fortunate enough to explore over 20 countries across the globe. In building Alike.io, Ashish’s vision is to create a platform that helps travel content creators own their financial destiny and monetise their content on their own terms. In his role as Co-Founder, he is responsible for driving the overall strategy, as well as being the brand advocate of the company. Ashish is a firm believer in the power of technology to transform the travel industry and is committed to using his expertise to help content creators and travellers connect in new and exciting ways. In the initial part of his more than 20 years of corporate career, Ashish advised businesses across various industries to overcome their strategic business challenges, help improve their digital presence and customer engagement. His passion for travel led him to take up a senior role at Dubai Tourism, leading the Digital Platforms and Strategic Partnerships functions there. Outside of work, Ashish loves to travel with his family and is always planning his next adventure. He is also a passionate advocate for sustainable travel and is committed to helping travelers make eco-friendlier choices when exploring new destinations.

Mr. Lokendra Saini

Organization: EaseMyTrip.com

Designation: Chief Operating Officer

Mr Lokendra has worked through multiple senior level roles and responsibilities in Business, Strategy, P&L, unit economics, direct and indirect growth via alliances, partnerships & distribution with some top travel businesses in India. In his current role Mr. Lokendra is working as Chief Operating Officer of India’s faster growing and second largest online travel company – EaseMyTrip.com. He is primarily responsible for developing and executing strategies for business expansion across key travel verticals like flights, hotels, holidays, trains, buses, and cabs. Besides, he will be focusing on initiating some new strategic business units to augment growth for India and International markets. In his previous role as vice president with ixigo.com, he headed all travel business verticals - flights, trains, buses and hotels for the organisation and turned a negative P&L business into a profit making under 3 years. Mr. Lokendra has worked extensively across strategic alliances, high value partnerships and captive distribution with companies such as goibibo and makemytrip. Amongst his string of achievements, some of them were getting travel integrated inside the mobile platforms of top 12 Indian banks and integrations with players such as Paytm, Flipkart and many more. An outcomes‐driven senior executive with a proven track record leading organisational transformation. Passionate about innovative solutions, building high‐performance teams, and creating company, client, and shareholder value. Responsible for all facets of revenue generation and strategy overseeing our growing sales, marketing, and customer success functions that will drive continued expansion and deliver customer value.

Mr. Aditya Gupta

Organization: Yatra.com | Ex-MakeMyTrip IIM-C

Designation: Senior Vice President | Business Head Hotels and Marketing

I am a versatile business leader with interest and experience in Ecommerce Business, Business Development, Alliances, Operations, and Customer Services Adept at P&L management, Sales and Negotiations, Revenue Management, Category Management, Agency/Supplier Management, Currently, I am working with @Yatra.com, as Senior VP - Business and Marketing. Prior to Yatra, I worked at Makemytrip.com for more than 11 years, in different management roles. Before Makemytrip.com, I worked with Air Sahara, where I managed the Events division. Beyond my professional commitments personally, I am fond of reading, meditation, cycling, and traveling.

Mr. Manoj Nair

Organization: Flight Centre Travel Group India

Designation: National Marketing Leader

Manoj Nair is currently serving as the Marketing Leader at FCM Travel India. FCM is one of the largest travel management companies in the world, and the flagship global business travel division of Flight Centre Travel Group. With over two decades of experience in leadership positions within the travel industry, he is well-versed in brand building and customer-focused innovation. Manoj Nair holds a management degree from Mumbai University, an Executive Program in Leadership and Management from IIM Kolkata, and an International MBA from Marketing Week London. His primary responsibility at FCM is to develop marketing solutions that drive ROI for the organization. Prior to his current role, Manoj was responsible for designing and executing marketing strategies at Thomas Cook and Kuoni. His expertise in marketing has earned him recognition as one of the most influential marketing leaders by the World Marketing Congress and CMO Asia. Manoj Nair is also an avid cyclist and serves as a bicycle councillor. He is passionate about exploring new places and cultures, which is evident in his extensive experience within the travel industry. His love for travel and adventure has taken him to many destinations around the world, and he is always eager to discover new places.