Hotel Specialists Asia
Team
Rajesh Punjabi
Partner & Founder
Rajesh is based in Mumbai and was Vice President with Hilton India and was also on its Board of Directors. Rajesh and his team were responsible for establishing and growing Hilton’s presence in India from its first hotel in Oct 2009 to 20 hotels today (across 5 of the Company’s brands), and a significant part of its current pipeline. He was also responsible for decisions in introducing and adapting Hilton’s brands into India, land acquisitions, divestments in JVs and was closely involved with corporate affairs of the Company.
Prior to Hilton Worldwide , Rajesh was Vice President Mergers and Acquisitions and a founding team member of Ambit Corporate Finance Pte Ltd, a pioneer in the Investment Banking sector in India. As part of Ambit, Rajesh led M&A and Private Equity transactions and partner searches for a variety of sectors including heading the corporate finance practice for hospitality under a joint venture with Panel Kerr Foster.
Previously Rajesh worked with Andersen as a Senior Business Advisor providing tax, foreign investment and business advice for global corporations entering and doing business in India.
Mithun Jayaraman
Partner
Mithun is based in Bangalore and worked for over 9 years with the Taj Group of Hotels in India and Sri Lanka as the Finance head of a major subsidiary of the group. In Sri Lanka, he was the Head of Finance of TAL Lanka Hotels which is owned and based out of Colombo. He played a key role in the restoration of the Taj Samudra Colombo, leading its successful turnaround in business performance.
On his return to Mumbai as the CFO of PIEM Hotels Ltd , a Taj Group Company, he oversaw the financial functions of Budgeting, MIS and strategic roles of handling partner relationships and Asset management, comprising of Revenue & Profitability Management.
Having also qualified in Revenue Management from Cornell University, he led the data analytics and business intelligence initiatives for the Taj Group of Hotels. This involved implementing Dashboards for Key Business Drivers /Metrics and insights on the SAS Business Intelligence platform, providing Business Managers with real-time insights for decision making.