OYO Appoints Tejal Patil as Senior Legal Advisor for India & South Asia

OYO Hotels & Homes, one of the world’s leading hotel chains today announced the appointment of Tejal Patil as Senior Legal Advisor for India & South Asia, effective 21st September 2020.

This appointment is in line with the company’s continuous commitment to strengthening its leadership bench and creating a global pool of strategic talent that can help the company achieve its goals of ensuring sustained growth, maintaining operational excellence, creating a culture of innovation and establishing raised standards of corporate governance.  

In addition to being a key member of the OYO Global leadership team, Tejal will also be responsible for leading OYO’s legal function in the region, which includes managing regulatory, contractual, and legal compliance for the company, help steer OYO’s strategic initiatives, disputes resolution, and providing senior management with actionable counsel on strategic business decisions and operational execution. She will also oversee OYO’s regional in-house team of legal and compliance professionals and be responsible for managing outside counsel relationships in India and South Asia. Tejal will be reporting into Rohit Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer, India & South Asia, OYO and working in conjunction with Rakesh Prusti, Global General Counsel, OYO Hotels & Homes.

An industry veteran with over 27 years of experience, Tejal joins OYO after a 19-year successful stint in the global conglomerate, GE (General Electric Company). Her last role was that of the General Counsel of GE South Asia. Her previous experience includes General Counsel, Asia Pacific roles with GE’s healthcare, consumer and industrial and aviation businesses. She has worked in Singapore and Tokyo prior to relocating to Delhi in 2012.  She is a solicitor at both the Bombay Incorporated Law Society and the Law Society of England and Wales.

Rohit Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer, India & South Asia, OYO Hotels & Homes welcomed Tejal into the OYO family, “We are delighted to have Tejal on board my executive team as our Senior Legal Advisor for India and South Asia. Having someone of her calibre and market reputation will help us strengthen our corporate governance standards and ensure the highest level of compliance in all our decisions. We are confident that Tejal’s proactive management style, pragmatic approach to decision making, and the integrated “one-team” spirit that she is known to instil in her team, will surely enable our legal team to function seamlessly while enabling cross-business projects to maintain legal efficiencies. 

We are confident that we all will benefit from Tejal’s leadership skills as well as her experience of running a legal and compliance function for the region. She will be a true thought partner to the global leadership team.”  

Rakesh Prusti, Global General Counsel, OYO Hotels & Homes added, “Tejal needs no introduction in the legal fraternity and her proven leadership skills, problem-solving capabilities, and passion for building efficient teams with strong corporate governance makes her best suited to take OYO’s legal team in the region to the next level. I am quite confident that she will be a great asset to our organization, and I will draw from her expertise on various international projects that we are pursuing as a part of our global strategic objectives. On behalf of the entire global legal and compliance team, I welcome Tejal to the OYO family”

Commenting on joining OYO Hotels & Homes, Tejal Patil said, ”I have followed OYO’s journey from being a startup to its entry into the unicorn club, international expansion, amongst others,  and I look forward to playing my part in its growth story as the company sets its foot on to the road to recovery. This is an exciting time for the company, as travel resumes and people start looking for good quality, safe and hygienic places, at an affordable price, I strongly believe we have all it takes to be one of the first new-age hospitality companies to come out stronger as the pandemic subsides. I’m excited to work with talented and dynamic professionals like Ritesh, Rohit, Rakesh, and the entire team and look forward to the opportunity that lies ahead for OYO in the region, and around the world. For me, it's literally Day Zero!”