This Delhi University graduate went from being a lawyer to the CEO of India’s largest airline to a boardroom with the likes of Betsy Atkins who backed Yahoo and eBay

• Aditya Ghosh has been appointed as a board member of OYO.
• Ghosh joins Ritesh Agarwal, Betsy Atkins, Bejul Somaia and others on the board of the hospitality unicorn.
• Ghosh was earlier the CEO of the Indian airlines IndiGo.

Aditya Ghosh started off as a lawyer after he graduated from the Delhi 30 years ago. Since then, he has risen up the corporate ladder fast. He is not new to the plush offices of Gurgaon and big positions in company Board of Directors. The latest feather in his cap is a board seat in India’s hospitality unicorn OYO.

A decade at Indigo

Ghosh joined Indigo in 2008 after six years as a lawyer. Interestingly, Ghosh used to work with J Sagar Associates where IndiGo was his client.


He held on to the position of President of InterGlobe Aviations for ten years. He resigned in 2018, when the company was expanding to international waters.

Ghosh’s resignation was much talked about and he was replaced by IndiGo founder Rahul Bhatia as an interim CEO. “Firstly, and with mixed emotions, I wish to inform you that Aditya Ghosh is resigning and will leave the Company on July 31. Aditya wishes to start a new business venture and we respect his decision to do so,” Bhatia said in an email to its employees.

Under his leadership, Indigo airlines got a market share of 39.5% in India.

Soon after his resignation at IndiGo, Ghosh joined Tata Trusts as an advisor at the Tata Trusts Cancer Care Initiative. It was a short stint.

A part of OYO’s fast growth

Ghosh joined OYO in November 2018 as the CEO India and South Asia. “We will have one million rooms inventory into our fold in the near distant future. I think, it should happen in a year and a half,” Ghosh had said earlier this year, adding that OYO will soon be the world’s largest hotel chain.

Today he shares the boardroom of OYO with the founder Ritesh Agarwal, Betsy Atkins (an early backer of Yahoo and eBay) among other investors like Munish Varma from SoftBank Vision Fund, Lightspeed India Partners Advisors’ Bejul Somaia and Mohit Bhatnagar, the Managing Director of Sequoia Capital India.


“Aditya’s strong business acumen, problem solving capabilities, passion for building an organization with strong corporate governance and a high performing work culture that thrives on principles of diversity and inclusion, makes him the perfect choice for this larger and more strategic role, at a global level. I am certain that this decision will greatly help OYO achieve its goals, globally,” said Agarwal.

The trouble-shooter in need

Ghosh’s rise in the company comes at a time when OYO is dealing with multiple problems at hand, while it is also expanding rapidly across the world.

A valuation report sourced on OYO’s financials show that the company has reported a loss of ₹2,384.7 crore, almost six times higher than its losses a year earlier.

In July 2019, Agarwal invested $2 billion into his own company. Agarwal made the investment through a Cayman-registered company, RA Hospitality Holdings. This resulted in a jump in the valuation of the company.


However, OYO is also facing trouble from hotel owners who are alleging that OYO’s practices are unethical.

Recently, a Bengaluru hotelier filed a cheating case against Agarwal and six others claiming that the OYO hasn’t paid him his dues. According to the complaint, OYO was supposed to pay ₹7 lakh a month for room bookings but failed to do so since May 2019.

OYO responded stating that it would fight back with a complaint against the hotelier for "using improper legal means to sensationalise a civil dispute and get attention".

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