Ankur Bhatia – Executive Director, The Bird Group

As Executive Director of the Bird Group of Companies, Ankur Bhatia provides the strategic vision and direction to the consortia of the Bird Group of Companies. At 35, he manages the diversification charter at the Bird Group, which today is a business conglomerate with a turnover in excess of USD 100 million. His focus is on devising blue ocean strategies that strengthen the overall brand proposition and accelerate a leap in core business value by exploring new growth avenues for building uncontested market leadership.

Among other things, Ankur is credited with bringing in the Amadeus brand for the group which is today the market leader in providing travel technology for travel agents & airlines in the Indian sub-continent. He also steered the company's entry in new areas including:

• Pioneering the BPO wave in the travel domain: Whilst still pursuing his degree in Software Engineering from King’s College, University of London, he piloted Reservation Data Maintenance (India) Pvt. Ltd. (RDM), an IT enabled Software Development and Service Support company for managing back-end airline operations and inventory control. RDM was the 1st Indian BPO, which was established in 1993. Today this successful organization has more than 800 strong work force with an enviable list of airline clients in its portfolio.

• Setting up a chain of 5 star hotel properties in New Delhi, Hrishikesh, Goa marking the Group’s foray in the hospitality space under Bird Hospitality Services wherein the company will set-up a chain of exclusive properties in India in collaboration with Dusit Thani.

• Spearheading the company’s foray in the airline space with announcement of plans to roll-out a regional airline over the next 1 year.

• Leading the Luxury brand management mandate at the Bird Group which entails the roll-out of the BMW dealer network, Luxury Yachts with European Luxury Yacht manufacturer Cranchi and 'On demand corporate business jets' and Airline Management Services with Regourd Aviation.

• Marking the group’s IT Services and R&D foray with Bird Information Systems (BIS), another of his extremely successful ventures, providing state of the art technology and backend solutions to airlines such as Kingfisher Airlines, Paramount Airways. GO Air, Air One to name a few.

• Growing Amadeus India into a leading GDS in the subcontinent with a market share of over 50 percent. The company today has a 400 plus strong team of professionals across 30 Branch Offices catering to the needs of travel organizations in 135 cities spread across the length and width of India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Maldives.

After completing his basic education from Modern School, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi, Ankur proceeded to King’s College, University of London for a degree in Computer Science.

Elder of the two sons of a successful and affluent business family owning a chain of travel organizations, Ankur Bhatia resides in New Delhi representing the entrepreneurial spirit of the Indian Youth.