Param Kannampilly is a perfect example of how circumstances shape one’s destiny. The split of Raheja brothers gave birth to Concept Hospitality in 1995 as he decided to “hang up his operational boots and to start a new venture”. (Kannampilly was overseeing Raheja’s hotels division at that time.)
As luck would have it, this is when his friend, Vithal Kamath, was looking for someone to build a hotel for him. Kamath went on to join Kannampilly as 50-percent partner and together they built The Orchid in Mumbai. “I thought if we are building something for the future, we must give what the public wants and zeroed down on environment, as this was the most important value for the next generation.”
Kannampilly had understood the subject while working with consultants who would reduce, reuse and recycle all material, and decided to create a better product in The Orchid – Asia’s first Ecotel that was externally certified. When he and Kamath decided to split four years ago, Kannampilly bought off Concept Hospitality and started with managing about seven hotels. “Today, after three years, we run about 25 hotels and this financial year we have planned to open 10 more,” he shares.
Kannampilly is a man of very firm belief and determination, who thinks that he has been plain lucky in many cases. “I have made some interesting moves in my life,” he says with a smile. “First was when I joined the catering college Bombay. I decided that, by the end of the course, I will come out as manager. If engineers pass out as engineers and doctors as doctors, why do hoteliers come out as supervisors only?”
Yet his first job was, unfortunately, as a supervisor with the Taj. However, as soon as he joined, an offer to be the acting manager of a hotel in Goa belonging to the Salgaonkars called the La Paz came his way. Not one to miss an opportunity, he took a salary cut of Rs500 and was on his way to becoming a manager. “Neither could I spell the word general nor manager then,” Kannampilly says. But that’s another story.
His life went on to take a different turn when he met one of his mentors, who urged him to move on and Kannampilly did. After gaining experience as a banquet manager, F&B manager and GM at the Connemara, owned by the Spencers, he decided to move on when the property was sold to Taj. This time, Kannampilly wanted to earn some resort experience. Fariyas gave him that for the next five years as the executive director of both the Lonavala and Mumbai properties.
