Mike Kistner, Chief Executive Office and Member of Board, RezNext Global

Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

With three decades of experience in the hospitality industry, online operations, and technology, Mike

Kistner has made immense contributions to the hospitality industry right from leading the efforts to

introduce the first enterprise- level central reservation system to the market at Pegasus, pioneering the

first system wide free to guest internet access program at Best Western and bringing to market their

award winning internet booking engine.

With a sharp foresight and strong acumen for innovative technology, Kistner is also a founding member

of Open Travel Alliance. He also led this industry association as its Chairman for 5 years. During his

tenure the dream of bringing an industry standard XML specification to the travel industry was realized.

Recognized for his business skills and management techniques, Kistner has held various leadership

positions including Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Pegasus Solutions, Inc., CIO and

Senior Vice President ecommerce at Best Western International, Senior VP of IT and ecommerce at

Wyndham Hotels and EVP of Operations for Super 8 Motels.

In all his roles he has been closely associated with the hotel distribution environment and has worked on

several industry recognized projects. These include bringing to market one of the largest and first

consumer data warehouse having consumption detail data on over 100 million travellers and leading the

industry’s largest property management system deployment to date, 6,000 properties in 18 months, at

Cendant now Wyndham.

As the CEO of RezNext Global Solutions Pvt Ltd, he is currently pioneering a big change in the hotel

distribution environment with real-time distribution technology. With the objective of becoming the

world’s preferred hotel distribution switch, Kistner is looking at RezNext, an enterprising start up to

demystify the global complex distribution business and foster new levels of collaboration between

hoteliers and demand generators with seamless, real-time distribution technology.

Kistner is recognized as a thought leader in the hospitality industry in India and abroad and has been

invited as a speaker and panelists at various events.

Most recently he was a speaker at FHRAI annual convention. Other key events he participated this year

as a speaker / panelist include India Travel Distribution Summit in Singapore, Hotel Innovation Summit,

SATTE, India International Travel & Tourism (IITT). He will also be speaking at the Smart Hoteliers Expo on

Dec 17, in Noida.

Mr. Abraham Alapatt , Chief Innovation Officer and Head – Marketing & Service

Quality, Thomas Cook India

Abraham is a marketing & brand professional with over 17 years of full-time professional experience at

senior strategic levels across the varied domains of brand building - advertising, corporate

communication, PR & media relations, internal communication, customer service and Internet-

technology.

During this period, he has worked with promoters and as a member of senior management teams in key

marketing, client management and business development roles at leading advertising agencies like Ogilvy

& Mather, an international internet solution provider start-up, Reliance Mutual Fund - India’s leading

asset management company and Development Credit Bank. His last assignment (prior to joining Thomas

Cook India) was with Future Generali India (both life and general insurance businesses) as part of their

original start up team. At Future Generali, Abraham led the Brand, Corporate Communication, Customer

Service and Rewards & Recognition teams.

Abraham’s strengths are in the areas of marketing, brand strategy formulation, implementation and

management; integrated brand and corporate communication; advertising; PR-media relations; market

research, customer service and customer-centric marketing from ideation to process engineering.

Abraham is also a part-time writer and columnist and his articles, opinions and interviews feature in

various Brand & Marketing forums, portals and publications such as Campaign India, agencyfaqs,

exchange4media, mxmindia, Brand Equity, 4Ps etc. He was also a speaker at the World Brand Congress,

Mumbai in 2010 and the Great Indian Marketing Summit in 2012. Abraham was also one of only eight

“Futurist CMO” Hall of Fame inductees from across India for 2011-12.

Abraham is a Bachelor in Commerce from Loyola College, Chennai and a Post Graduate Diploma Holder

(MBA) in Marketing & International Marketing from the School of Communication & Management

Studies, Cochin.

At Thomas Cook, Abraham’s mandate as Head of Marketing and Chief Innovation Officer is to lead the

Group’s brand building efforts as well as support and grow individual lines of business in line with

existing and emerging opportunities.

Mr. J.B. Singh , President and CEO, InterGlobe Hotels

J.B. Singh is the President and CEO of InterGlobe Hotels (IGH). Prior to joining IGH, J.B. was the

President and CEO for InterGlobe Technology Quotient (ITQ).

Mr. Singh is credited with rich industry experience spanning over 29 years in strategic roles across

various travel organizations including Worldspan, Jet Air, Jet Airways, Scandinavian Airlines and

British Airways.

Mr. Singh holds a Post Graduate BTEC diploma in Management from Oxford Brookes University, UK.

SESH SESHADRI – Director, Lonely Planet India

The Director of Lonely Planet India, Sesh Seshadri is one of the most established names in the

publishing industry today. Carving a niche for himself with a career spanning over four decades,

he played a vital role in Lonely Planet’s entry into the Indian market with the launch of its series

of Travel Guides in 2012. Lonely Planet has till date launched 45 titles.

His current role is to create a sustained and successful presence for Lonely Planet in India adding

value to their future developments.

Previously associated with Oxford University Press (OUP) for over 25 years until 1997, Sesh

Seshadri was the only employee to be appointed to 3 of OUP’s national strategic committees’ viz.

Educational, Academic and Finance & Operations. Sesh Seshadri credits much of his publishing

knowledge and capability to Oxford University Press. He has also worked with Dorling Kindersley.

India serving as Executive Director and played a key role in the company’s revamp strategy

including warehousing, customer service, marketing and publishing systems.

In addition to over four decades of publishing experience, Chennai-born Sesh Seshadri is also a

successful consultant and an entrepreneur. Sesh Seshadri established publishing consulting

company O.V.E.R.L.E.A.F. in 1997 which passionately works towards furnishing classrooms with

quality learning and providing world class teaching resources. He is also the trustee of Neelbagh

Group of schools founded by David Horsburgh. Furthermore, he was the Founder Director at

Textech that specializes in providing academic solutions in the form of books and ebooks that

enable publishers to create, manage, repurpose, and distribute content.

Sesh Seshadri comes from a family of publishing professionals with a combined experience of

morethan 100 years. Besides publishing and consulting, Sesh is a crazy cricket fan. If not in the

publishing industry, he would surely be a cricket umpire. He enjoys south Indian classical music

and is also skilled to speak in several languages. His wife enjoys being a home maker and his son

Naveen has completed his MBA from Duke, USA, one among the top ten business schools and is

currently working with Lonely Planet as Chief Operating Officer.

Prashant Aroor , CEO & MD , Mango Hotels

Prashanth comes from a family business background in Real Estate Development and Serviced Apartment

Operations. He has held executive positions with B2B Media packaging and production companies in

Mumbai. Prashanth from his experience of extensive 'Business Travel' across India (and therefore,

experience with the acute shortage of suitable infrastructure), seeded the Mango Hotels idea in 2008. He

with co-founders, successfully validated the Mango Hotels business model by reaching the finals of the

Economic Times - Power of Ideas 2009. Mango Hotels, has since then, successfully tested a prototype in

2010 and Mango Hotels has 15 operating hotels in India in record time and a pipeline to hit 24 operating

hotels by March'16 and 101 hotels by March '19. Prashanth serves as the Managing Director and CEO of

Mango Hotels. He has a Bachelors of Engineering from VTU and an MBA from SP Jain Institute of

Management and Research, Mumbai.

Abhijit “Beej” Das , President and CEO , Boston East India Hotels

Beej is the company’s President and CEO. He is involved in all areas of the business with a focus

on development, strategic relationships and capital transactions. His hospitality, legal,

technology and engineering experience give him the range of skills essential to sourcing,

cultivating and developing meaningful and engaging hotel projects globally. With a global base,

transactional experience totaling more than $2 billion in value, and a determination to chart a

new path in the industry, Beej is a hotelier on a mission.

With a passion for hospitality and technology roots planted firmly in his early teens as a advanced

technology provider for the U.S. Navy, Beej believes that the technological innovations of the

past twenty years have paved the way for a new generation of bespoke, curated, and exceptional

hotels and global hotel collections, such as the company’s Troca Hotels collection.

Prior to founding Boston East India, Beej was a senior member of the Hilton Worldwide

development team where he was responsible for the development of its entire portfolio of

brands on the Indian subcontinent. Dissatisfied with the face of institutionalized hospitality, he

left Hilton and went to work starting a new company that inspired him. Beej founded Boston East

India Hotels in January 2012, ten days after his aunt, whose inspiration helped set his dream free,

passed away.

Fluent in English and Bengali, Beej has a B.A. in Political Science from Middlebury College in

Vermont and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor. Immediately after

law school, he served as a law clerk for the Hon. Benson E. Legg, Chief Judge of the U.S. District

of Maryland. As a lawyer, Beej represented banks, developers, funds, and REITs in a wide variety

of hotel development, finance and acquisition related transactions.

After years of living abroad representing American companies globally, Beej is excited to be back

in the Boston area with his beloved sports teams, the 2013 World Series Champion Boston Red

Sox and the Boston Celtics.

Hospitality Technology Evangelist

Hospitality technology professional with 13 years of experience, worked for Hyatt Hotels and

Resorts, Mars Hotels and Restaurants, The Oberoi Hotels and Resorts and now working as

Corporate Head IT for India's premium luxury brand The Leela Places, Hotels and Resorts. -

Founder of Hospitech - The Hotel Technology Leaders Forum. India's First Hotel Technology

Community. (Since 2009) - Founder of HATT - Hospitality, Aviation and Travel Technology Forum.

(Since 2012) - Committee Member of HRAWI Infotech Committee. (Since 2012) - Secretary of

HFTP India Chapter. (Since 2012) - Co-Founder of MENA CXO Forum. (Since 2012) Industry

recognition and titles : - Awarded as Best IT Person of they year by Hotelier India in 2009 and

2010. - Awarded as Future 100 CIO of India by IT Next, 9.9 Media. - EDGE Winner 2010 and 2012

winner by UBM.

Aditya Sanghi, Co-Founder and CEO , HMS Infotech

Mr. Aditya Sanghi is a Computer Science Graduate from Nagpur University and has 15+ years

experience in the industry. A graduate from a private engineering college Y.C.CE, Aditya was also

sportsman, and played Table Tennis at state level. Aditya was last working with Informatica

Business Solutions for a few years before venturing into HMS. His entrepreneurial skills were

honed at ABO Software Pvt. Ltd, where he was Director and Stakeholder during his first venture

straight out of college. Aditya worked relentlessly in all facets of the company for 11 years

wearing multiple hats that includes Product Management, Pre-sales, Software Architecture,

Project Management, and Development for the EDI/EAI product EDISPHERE. He also has unique

experience from an early stage in his career, wherein he has been associated with products from

the very beginning from the drawing board to releasing it into the market. Aditya has been

actively participating in international exhibitions, helping to market and position the product in

various forums. He has been a member of NASSCOM, TIE, Round Table, and has been a part of

various product industry related summits.

Role in HMS Infotech – Aditya works on a structured framework to spearhead the activities of

the company as the CEO. He co-founded HMS with a vision to make Hotelogix a world-renowned

brand in the hospitality sector.

Aashish Chopra , Content Marketer , IXIGO

Aashish Chopra is an award winning viral video marketer, having made and marketed videos with

millions of views, with one becoming Asia’s most shared branded Facebook post (Campaign Asia).

He is passionate about content and believes that in the times of declining attention spans and

chaotic newsfeeds, creativity is the differentiator. He heads content marketing at ixigo. From

ideation to execution he has been instrumental in making video marketing a growth hack for

ixigo. “In today’s fast evolving digital landscape, social media strategy for any brand revolves

around remarkable content. Content must be compelling and share-worthy, period. Every brand

today is turning into a media company.” he affirms. Before diving into video marketing, Aashish

was active in visual content marketing, with several Infographics going viral on Slideshare. Before

that, he started a web services company in Canada and learnt the lessons of being an

entrepreneur and the value of building relationships in traditional old-school businesses. As early

as grade 8, he was designing websites and helping others with new tools and technology. He lives

in Gurgaon, and is dealing with the everyday challenges of having a cat :)

Deepak Mavinkurve, Founder and CEO of RepuFact

Founder and CEO of RepuFact, India-based analytics start-up, Deepak Mavinkurve who dons the

hat of a serial entrepreneur, has a deep understanding of the hospitality industry with nearly 2

decades of experience in the space. He is known for his "out of the box" thinking that has given

him an edge over his peers in social semantic search and big data revolution.

He gainfully adopts his expertise to spearhead RepuFact, which he co-founded with three others

to revolutionize the approach how the hotel industry operates to increase its revenues.

Deepak co-founded Travelguru.com and grew the company to be a leader (India’s largest Hotel

Network), a niche and nascent category in India around the year 2006, before it was acquired by

Travelocity in 2010. In 2012, again Travelguru part of the business was sold to Yatra.com. At

Travelguru.com, Deepak was responsible in creating the new business category in India besides

being directly involved in product, strategy and technology planning, senior management

recruitment and brand negotiation. He headed the operations for the company wherein his

portfolio included managing vendor side operations as well, that involved 25,000 diverse

vendors.

Deepak is a Commerce graduate from Bangalore University and holds a degree in Executive

Development Programme (General Management) from Indian Institute of Management,

Bangalore. He has completed his ADP in Marketing, Finance, Strategy & Leadership, from

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School.

Deepak spends his leisure time indulging in his many passions including readings & sports. A keen

sportsman, Deepak has represented the State and University in Table Tennis and was a National

level Bronze medalist.

Ashish Khanna , Assistant Vice President , IT , Oberoi Hotels & Resorts

An IIM Kolkata Alumni Ashish has completed Management development program course from MDI

Gurgaon, he has also completed a course on managing people effectively from Cornell University, New

York. He is a Hospitality techno-business professional with 15 years of experience and has worked with

varied industry leading business houses like-: Mahindra and Mahindra, Taj Hotels and Resorts and with

The Oberoi Hotels and Resorts.

Ashish has been very actively mentoring the HATT community since it’s inception in 2012. He has also

been active with many leading industry media houses and has been sharing his thoughts and articles on

changing the industry perception especially around IT vertical from a support function to a business

driver.

He has pioneered many new technologies implementation in hospitality industry and his contribution

has been covered and well recognized by almost all media partners like-: 9.9 media, Dataquest, Express

computing IDC etc.

Keen strategist, planner and implementer with expertise in devising strategies aimed at enhancing

overall organizational growth, sustained profitability of operations and improved business performance.

Ashish is Gemba Kaizen and ITIL certified with strong governance and process skill to improve business

functions.

Industry recognition and titles:

• President – HATT Global

• Awarded as Future 100 CIO of India

• Awarded “Pocket CIO 2012” from IT NEXT

• Has been selected as part of “Achievers Club” from Greyhound Media on innovative approach

• Awarded “Pocket CIO 2014” from IT NEXT

• Awarded “No Limit CIO” from ET Now in 2014

• Awarded “IT Excellence Award” by ET Now in 2015

• Has been on Advisory Panel for CIO & LEADER Magazine

Avijit Arya, Chief Mogul at Internet Moguls

Avijit Arya, Chief Mogul at Internet Moguls, is a speaker, writer and columnist for social media

and online reputation management. His company, Internet Moguls, is a marketing-driven

agency with presence in Delhi, Mumbai, Dubai and Vancouver. He has attended several global

social media and digital marketing conferences, as a speaker and also has his very own

publication known as Digital Hospitality.