Aradhana Khowala

Aradhana Khowala is one of the most influential leaders in the luxury hospitality, travel and tourism sector. Her career has spanned 23+ years, five continents and more than 75 countries. Today, she is the CEO of Aptamind Partners, a strategic consultancy, which combines hard data and decades of experience to advise governments, emerging destinations, public and private organisations on futureproofing their business. 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 active board member, she has an impressive portfolio of non-executive board roles, currently serving as Chair of the Group Advisory Board of Red Sea Global in Saudi Arabia, the developer behind the Red Sea Project as well as AMAALA - the world’s first integrated wellness destination. Khowala also serves as a Board Member of Elaf Group, the leisure arm of a sustainable listed holding company – SEDCO where she also chairs the compensation and remuneration committee. 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.

An accomplished public speaker with a genuine passion for storytelling, she has spoken on the TEDX stage, participated in global policy discussions in United Nations, as well as the G20 apart from speaking at some of the foremost Leadership Summits around the world. A resolute advocate of women's empowerment, diversity and inclusion and an activist for equality, she spends a lot of her time engaging Heads of States lobbying for travel and tourism as a force for good but through a lens of equity, justice and mindfulness.

Khowala has won multiple awards and was featured amongst the 100 most powerful people in Global Hospitality as well as the 25 most Influential Women in Hospitality in 2022 by International Hospitality Institute. In 2021 she was featured as an Inspirational woman rethinking a sustainable tourism by City Nation Place in the UK and also won the Chairman’s Award from Global Chamber of Commerce, US for being a leader amongst peers. She won the 21st Century Icon Awards in 2017 in association with CNBC and London School of Economics in London 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 of luxury by Swiss Economic magazine Bilan.

Khowala is a strong believer in and advocate for the fact that, when it is done right, tourism can be a force for positive change. This must involve tourism stakeholders taking an active rather than a passive role in all three aspects of ESG: environmental, social and governance. And while her vision for the future of tourism is ambitious, she is not afraid of the hard work or the tough conversations that are required to get there, whether that is talking about the gender gap in the boardroom or healthcare and wellness sectors, getting to the bottom of what is turning the younger generation off a career in tourism, or developing metrics and tools to ensure hospitality businesses robustly measure their efforts to improve diversity, equity and inclusion through a first-of-its kind portal, FiveEightTen. One theme runs through all her work: radical change is needed to ensure a sustainable future for an industry that has huge potential for positive social and financial impact on communities around the world.

She read at Cornell University in New York, has an MBA from Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland, is a certified Neuro Linguistic Programming Coach, and has an International Director Board Certification from INSEAD, France.