Aditya Ghosh gets a board seat at OYO; Rohit Kapoor takes over as CEO of India and SEA

After a 15-month stint as the CEO of OYO’s India & South Asia hotels and homes business, Aditya Ghosh has been elevated to the company’s board of directors. He will join existing directors Ritesh Agarwal, Betsy Atkins, Munish Varma, Bejul Somaia and Mohit Bhatnagar on the company’s board.

Ghosh is also moving on from the CEO role. He joined OYO in November last year to lead the company’s business in India and South Asia. Rohit Kapoor has been appointed as the new CEO, India and South Asia for Hotels & Homes.

Kapoor joined OYO about a year ago and since then has been leading the new real estate business vertical for the SoftBank-backed firm. Previously, he was the executive director and a member of the board at Max Healthcare.

Meanwhile, in his new role, Ghosh will be focusing on five key areas - safety and security, corporate governance, revenue management, customer experience, and stakeholder communications.

The restructuring in roles has come just after Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital India completed the secondary transaction selling 15% stake in OYO Hotels & Homes to founder Ritesh Agarwal for $1.5 billion.

Ghosh is one of the most sought after corporate executives in India. Before joining OYO, he was the President at IndiGo. Under his leadership, the company had doubled its market share from 20.3% to 39.6% between 2012- 17.

While Ghosh has got a larger role in the company, his core responsibility will be accelerating revenue and shrinking losses. OYO had reported 6X more losses in FY19 as compared to FY18. The firm had a loss of Rs 2,384.69 crore during FY19. Its revenue also registered a 4X hike to Rs 6,457 crore.

It’s worth noting that OYO’s largest backer SoftBank has been asking portfolio companies to prioritise corporate governance and unit economics. OYO seems to have taken the advice seriously when it appointed Betsy Atkins as an independent director last month.