INTERCONTINENTAL HOTELS Group (IHG), has appointed Ranjay Radhakrishnan Chief Human Resources Officer. He joins from 1st December 2016 at IHG’s Denham, UK headquarters and will become a member of IHG’s Executive Committee.
Radhakrishnan joins IHG from Unilever, where he has spent 23 years in a range of senior leadership roles at global, regional and country levels. He was a member of Unilever’s Human Resources (HR) Leadership team and his most recent role was as Executive Vice President Global HR (Categories & Market Clusters), where Ranjay was responsible for leading HR for all of Unilever’s eight regions (Market Clusters) as well as the four global Product Categories, under one unified global HR leadership role.
Richard Solomons, Chief Executive Officer of IHG commented: “I am delighted to welcome Ranjay to IHG. Having worked in numerous countries and markets across all specialist areas of HR, he brings a truly global and commercial perspective to the role and will be an integral part of my Executive Team. Our people have always played a critical role in building trust with our guests and owners. Ensuring that we continue to attract, retain and develop the very best talent in the industry is fundamental to the delivery of our strategy. I very much look forward to working with him.”
Radhakrishnan commented: “I have great respect for IHG’s commitment to its people and for the opportunities it offers employees around the world. It is a privilege to join IHG and to play a part in shaping the future of a business where people are such a fundamentally important part of its operations.”
Radhakrishnan’s previous roles have included Senior Vice President Human Resources for Unilever Europe, where he led HR in Unilever’s largest region, which employs over 20,000 people across 35 countries and over 60 factories. Before that, he was Vice-President for Talent, Learning & Organisation for Global Markets, Vice-President for Reward, Talent, Learning & Organisation for Asia, Africa and Central Europe and Vice-President HR for North Africa and the Middle East. He worked and lived in many different countries, including the Netherlands, Singapore, Dubai, London and India. He has a Bachelors degree in Commerce & Accounting from Mumbai University, India, and a Masters degree in Personnel Management from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India.