Unilever’s Ranjay Radhakrishnan joins InterContinental Hotels Group as CHRO

Radhakrishnan moved to the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) from the Unilever group, where he served for 23 years.

Roping in a long-time Unilever senior executive, the InterContinental Hotels Group has bagged a big ticket talent as its new CHRO after Tracy Robbins stepped down from the company in January this year. Ranjay Radhakrishnan, who had been with the Unilever group for the last 23 years, joined the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) in December. He has also become a member of IHG’s Executive Committee now.

Radhakrishnan had risen through the ranks in his long tenure at Unilever. Having spent over two decades in a range of senior leadership roles at global, regional and country levels, he brings with him a multi-geographical and rich professional experience spanning various functions.

At Unilever, he was a member of the group’s human resources (HR) leadership team and his most recent role was that of the executive vice president global HR (categories & market clusters), where he 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. Interestingly, Radhakrishnan joined Unilever as a management trainee in 1993, after completing his masters in human resources management, from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

From there on, he stayed with the group and rose up the ladder to reach the top grids. He was promoted as a manager-HR within one year of his joining and then took up the role of GM-HR, Foods. In 2005, he was posted as the HR director – organisation effectiveness & change, in London, UK where he spent about two years before moving to Dubai as the vice president-HR North Africa and the Middle East. He then spent about three years in Singapore before moving on to Netherlands as the senior vice president-HR, Europe in 2013.

Talking about this appointment, Richard Solomons, chief executive officer of IHG says, “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,” he added.

Talking about his new role with the IHG, Radhakrishnan says, “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 play a part in shaping the future of a business, where people are such a fundamentally important part of the operations.”