SPECIAL REPORT
HE HAS THE ENTHUSIASM OF A CHILD , IF SOMETHING NEW HAS TO BE DONE … HE CREATES SO MUCH EXCITEMENT IN A SMALL IDEA OF YOURS THAT YOU FEEL AS THOUGH YOU ’ VE BUILT THE TAJ MAHAL .
ANIL CHADHA
degree of discipline . There is no compromise on discipline , but yet at the same time , there ’ s a very high degree of motivation .”
One of his own mentors — and the person who plucked him to be a young GM — was the previous chairman of ITC , Yogesh Deveshwar , who led the evolution of ITC beyond tobacco and its development as a sustainable company . ( He died in May .)
“( Deveshwar ) told us that companies cannot survive in societies that fail , so you ’ ve got to look at the larger interests ,” Anand says . “ Making profit , and at the same time adding to society , do not conflict with each other .” That approach helped break another assumption , that a hotel could either be “ green ” or luxury , but not both .
That motivated Anand to make the ITC Gardenia in Bangalore , which opened in 2009 , a LEED Platinum hotel . The property also won awards for sustainability and luxury . “ That gave me the confidence that it is possible to combine both together ,” he says .
He found that the bigger challenge was internal . “ We had to change our mindset ,” he says . “ I was very clear that we would only succeed if responsible luxury filters down as a belief and not a ritual .”
He continues : “ Sustainability and efforts towards responsibility will never , for us , be a competitive weapon . We are happy to share ( our knowledge ) with everybody else because we are looking at the larger good of society . My my arsenal may be responsible luxury when I combine the two together , but on sustainability , it ’ s not .”
Sanjeev Bagai is a pediatric nephrologist who has known Anand since 1994 and delivered all three of his children . They are friends , but Bagai saw Anand ’ s business side — “ he knows his P & L like the back of his hand ” — when Bagai became a hospital administrator and about seven years ago undertook to build a hospital that met sustainable standards .
Anand counseled Bagai and lent him the expertise of his engineering staff . “ I sat with him very often ,” Bagai remembers . “ I understood what most hospital administrators would never know and never learn
— housekeeping , F & B , customer service , patient feedback , inventory management .” He also saw Anand ’ s influence in action .
“ He ’ s not a manager , he ’ s not an administrator , he ’ s not a leader . He ’ s a statesman ,” Bagai says . “ A true hallmark of a statesman is that a statesman doesn ’ t build managers , he doesn ’ t build leaders . He builds the next generation of people .”
‘ NO REGRETS ’ Anand takes a serious approach to work , but his sartorial side is a bit more playful . “ He likes to be noticed in a crowd ,” Kaul says . “ From far you can see — if there is a neon-colored necktie flashing somewhere , you know that it is Nakul .”
Which leads back , perhaps , to another lesson Anand learned from Arthur Hailey ’ s novel .
“ You get carried away by the glamor of it only to realize that there ’ s a lot more to it , but no regrets at all ,” he says . “ If I had a choice in my next life , I ’ d like to be a hotelier again .”
32 hotelsmag . com November / December 2019