OYO Hotels & Homes names Sharad Saxena as COO

Keeping its commitment to talent and recognising leaders, OYO Hotels & Homes has elevated Sharad Saxena, a young talented professional originally from New Delhi to SVP & COO, India & South Asia, Franchise Business. This development is aligned with the company’s commitment to delivering an enhanced customer, partner, and employee experience as it emerges as a resurgent brand in 2021.

Sharad has been with OYO since May 2019 and consistently delivered in all his roles in the organisation. During his last role as Chief Supply Officer for Franchise business, he has delivered exceptionally on all aspects of supply growth, network health and economics.

Under his leadership, the supply team enabled a strong partner connect via OYO Sambandh – a large scale partner outreach program, organised 60+ partner webinars, introduced OYO Secure – a prepaid wallet based system, where hotel partners deposit money in a secure wallet that gets adjusted with the net payment reconciliation system and Crystal deal – simplified contractual deals for the hotel partners.

As the company continuously delivers value to its owners, it has witnessed higher partner satisfaction levels in 2020 – a 5X quarter-on-quarter improvement – in its partner survey results This has come along with a resurgence in supply growth post-lockdown and significant technology improvement for the hotel partners on the partner facing app – Co-OYO and OYO OS platforms.

In his new role, Sharad will continue to make further progress as SVP and Chief Operating Officer for the Franchise business. The company’s region heads will work closely with Sharad to drive positive outcomes that drive OYO’s resurgence and move forward as One OYO. He will continue to lead the Supply function for the business.

Commenting on this,RohitKapoor, Chief Executive Officer, OYO India & South Asia, said, “At OYO, we are a meritocracy driven organisation and look forward to seeing the teams thrive under our extremely talented diversified leaders. The role enhancement for Sharad and other leaders is a further step in this direction. We are proud of Sharad’s leadership, where he has worked hard along with his team to improve partner survey results, margin and growth in the supply function. This is in recognition of the overall impact he has created over the last year. Big congratulations to him.”

Commenting on his elevation, SharadSaxena said, “Over the last year, I have closely witnessed the organisation’s resilience to the impact of COVID-19 on the overall business. As I step into the next chapter of my journey at OYO, I would like to thank Ritesh, Rohit and all OYOpreneurs for being ever-inspiring as well as for this exciting opportunity. I look forward to further working with the most amazing people and driving OYO’s next phase of growth as we work towards emerging stronger and much more resilient from the pandemic.”

Sharad is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and IIM-Ahmedabad and has worked with organizations such as ITC, McKinsey & Company, Ranbaxy and Max Healthcare India Ltd before joining OYO.