Aradhana Khowala is a global authority on the travel, tourism and hospitality industries and has over two decades of experience across 75+ countries in five continents. She is currently CEO of Aptamind Partners a Private Client Advisory that is a trusted advisor to ambitious leaders in Governments, Family Offices, Private UHNW Investors and International Organisations. Previously she was the Managing Director of Tourism at NEOM - the US$ 500 Billion land of the future purpose built for a sustainable and a new way of living in Saudi Arabia.
An experienced Board Member, she has an active portfolio of Board roles and currently serves as the Chairwoman of the Group Advisory Board of the Red Sea Global in Saudi Arabia which includes the Red Sea and AMAALA “giga” projects of Vision 2030 among others. Aradhana also serves as a Board Member and Steering Committee member of World Tourism Forum Lucerne in Switzerland which is a highly focused, top level, strategic body that brings together selected leaders around the world to reflect on the big challenges facing the industry and she is also a Board Member of Elaf Group, the leisure arm of a sustainable listed holding company - SEDCO. In the past she has worked for Jones Lang LaSalle, covering UK, Benelux and Scandinavian markets, a Strategy Consulting practice in Europe and Asia as well as in Hospitality Operations in India.
Aradhana has won multiple awards including being the 25 most Influential Women in Hospitality in 2022 by IHI. In 2021 she was featured as an Inspirational woman rethinking a sustainable future of tourism by City Nation Place in the UK and won the Chairman’s Award of Global Chamber of Commerce for being a leader amongst peers. She won the 21st Century Icon Awards in 2017 in association with CNBC and London School of Economics as an Inspirational Game Changer and in 2014, she was featured as one of the 50 most Influential Next Generation leaders who will define the future by Swiss Economic magazine Bilan (Forbes equivalent). She was also recently elected as a Fellow of the International Institute of Hospitality Management.
A resolute advocate of women's empowerment, diversity and inclusion and an activist for education as an agent of change, she spends a lot of her time engaging Presidents, Prime Ministers and Tourism Ministers lobbying for travel and tourism as a force for good but through a lens of equity, justice, and mindfulness. She has an MBA from Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland and an International Director Certification from INSEAD in France. A keen industry practitioner, she has participated in global policy discussions in United Nations, the WEF as well as the G20 apart from speaking at some of the foremost Leadership Summits around the world. A sought-after speaker, she is also a guest lecturer at many top schools like EHL, St. Gallen University among many others globally.
Now more than ever, stakeholders in the global hospitality industry need to unite, support each other, and stand behind initiatives that promote and advocate for the industry.
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