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#HASHTAG AWARDS

We have brought together eminent business leaders from various fields outside of the Travel and Hospitality fraternity, who have traveled
extensively both domestically and abroad, and are united by their passion and love for travel.

ASHUTOSH KHANNA
Partner,
Heidrick & Struggles

PRAKASH IYER
Leadership Trainer, Motivational Speaker, Best-selling Author

RAJAT K JAIN
Founder, PadUp Ventures

The Jury
Ashutosh Khanna

Partner,
Heidrick & Struggles

Ashutosh (Ash) Khanna is a Partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ New Delhi office and leads the Consumer Markets Practice in South Asia. With more than 15 years of executive search experience, Ash works closely with C-suite clients to find talent solutions that address increasingly complex business challenges .Starting with FMCG and then marketing services, Ash’s involvement has largely been within the consumer sector. His body of work includes board advisory and executive search for CEO and functional leaders.

He leverages the deep relationships he formed within the marketing and adverting sectors to work with clients on senior-level searches in the consumer goods, retail, marketing services, and travel/hospitality sectors as well as digital nave companies. In addition to executive search and advisory work, Ash finds satisfaction in building employer branding for start-ups with local and regional business location.

Prior to Heidrick & Struggles, Ash worked with another global executive search firm for 15 years. Before that, he was COO, India at Grey worldwide, and with Bayer, Lowe Lintas, and WPP in several P&L roles.

Prakash Iyer

Leadership Trainer,
Motivational Speaker, Best-selling Author

Prakash Iyer is a former CEO, a best-selling author, a motivational speaker, a certified leadership coach and an uncertified cricket junkie.

He spent three decades in the corporate world before stepping out to pursue his passions. In his last corporate role, Prakash was the Managing Director of Kimberly-Clark. Interestingly, he also served as the CEO of the Mumbai Indians in their title-winning IPL campaign in 2015. An MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, he started his career with Unilever

His fourth book titled ‘How Come No One Told Me That?’ – was published by Penguin last year.

Rajat K Jain

Founder
PadUp Ventures

Rajat Jain is a Gurgaon based corporate leader turned startup enthusiast who is on the social journey of creating India’s leading open architecture mentoring platform for deserving startups, to get early-stage business support. An IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad alumni, he founded PadUp Ventures in 2015 along with his partner Pankaj Thakar. PadUp is focussed on providing deep mentoring services to early-stage tech startups to help them survive and scale, to drive INNOVATION and create value.

After a 30+ years career in Corporate India in leadership roles, Rajat is also now a Non-executive Independent Director on several Boards including Aditya Birla Finance, Fino Payments Bank, Droom Technologies and Mahindra Holidays. He is also a trustee on the Board of the well-known Make-A-Wish Foundation, as well as Braj Foundation and an Advisor to the E&H Foundation.

In his corporate career, he has worked in the FMCG, media & entertainment, technology and telecom sectors in India, both at young stage companies and MNCs like Unilever, Sony, Walt Disney and Xerox. His last roles were MD of Xerox India and MD of Disney India before he started his social journey in 2015.

ABOUT HVS ANAROCK #HASHTAG

  • The #HASHTAG Awards (HVS ANAROCK Showcase Hospitality & Travel Awards Gala), held as the concluding session at HOPE (Hospitality Overview Presentation & Exchange), celebrates exemplary achievements in the industry.
  • The #HASHTAG Awards are presented to exceptional Hotel General Managers across each segment – Economy & Budget, Midscale, Upscale, Upper Upscale, and Luxury – as well as to Hotels in each of these categories that have delivered outstanding performance during the year.
  • The award nominations go through a comprehensive and stringent evaluation process using a specialized quantitative and qualitative rating matrix created by HVS ANAROCK in collaboration with our Process Partner, New York University.
  • The shortlisted nominees will then be assessed by an independent jury comprising distinguished business leaders from diverse industries outside the hospitality and travel sectors.
  • #HASHTAG aims to establish itself as the gold standard for hospitality awards.

About Our Process Partner,
New York University

  • Founded in 1831, New York University (NYU) is one of the world’s foremost research universities (with more than $1 billion per year in research expenditures) and is a member of the selective Association of American Universities.
  • NYU has degree-granting university campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai; has 12 other global academic sites, including London, Paris, Florence, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, and Accra; and sends more students to study abroad and educates more international students than any other U.S. college or university.
  • Through its numerous schools and colleges, NYU is a leader in conducting research and providing education in the arts and sciences, law, medicine, business, dentistry, education, nursing, the cinematic and performing arts, music and studio arts, public administration, social work, and professional studies, among other areas.
  • For more information about NYU, please visit https://www.sps.nyu.edu/.
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2025

#HASHTAG AWARDS CATEGORIES

HVS ANAROCK SHOWCASE HOSPITALITY
& TRAVEL AWARDS GALA

BEST HOTEL BUSINESS

LUXURY
UPPER UPSCALE
UPSCALE
MIDSCALE
ECONOMY & BUDGET

BEST HOTEL LEISURE

LUXURY
UPPER UPSCALE
UPSCALE
MIDSCALE

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2025

#HASHTAG AWARDS CATEGORIES

HVS ANAROCK SHOWCASE HOSPITALITY
& TRAVEL AWARDS GALA

BEST GENERAL MANAGER (GM) - BY JURY

LUXURY
UPPER UPSCALE
UPSCALE
MIDSCALE
ECONOMY & BUDGET

General Manager of the Year
(ONE FROM THE ABOVE 5)