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He tickled Vizagites' taste buds
S.B.S.B.
K.V. Madhu Nair. - Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam
He wanted to comply with his dad's wish and become a medico, while his principal at the professional college from where he got his degree desired that he take up the teaching career, but he finally turned out to be a hotel executive, and a successful one at that.
Meet K.V. Madhu Nair, the general manager of Hotel Green Park. Though he is a successful man in the hospitality industry today, joining that profession was just an accident for him. "I missed the medical seat by a whisker and opted out of the dental college to join B.Sc. In the very first year of my college a close friend by name Ross Telis forced me to apply for the Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology, Mumbai. And the irony was, I got through while he couldn't,'' says Nair with a chuckle.
Life was not a bed of roses for him in his teens. "I lost my dad when I was just 16-years-old and had to take up the part time- job of a copywriter at Ogilvy and Mather, while studying in the catering college. It was during those days, seeing my progress the college principal, Thangam Philip, who was a name to reckon with in the catering world in India, offered me the job of a faculty. But I opted to join the Welcomgroup hotel, Sea Rock, in Mumbai as bartender on completion, working for almost 16 hours a day. There I received my first award as the 'Best bartender of Mumbai' in 1985.
"Having tasted success I moved to Muscat as the restaurant manager of a five- star hotel. Though I worked in five-star hotels like and Oberoi in Mumbai as apprentice prior to my stint in Sea Rock, it was in Muscat that I really got the feel of the hotel industry. It was totally a different exposure and I was groomed to deal with people of different nationalities under various circumstances,'' says he. After a brief stint in a cruise liner in the Caribbean, Nair joined the Ramada Palm in Mumbai as food and beverage manager. But of all the hotels where he served, he regards his stint as the general manager in Holiday Inn in Ooty as the most educative period. "I took over as the general manager of Holiday Inn in 1992, and at that time the hotel was under construction. This is the place where I learnt the nitty-gritty of managing a hotel. It was the most rewarding period of my career. I was exposed right from the basics of construction to the setting up of a kitchen and from marketing of rooms to running the publicity campaign of the hotel.'' Nair's stay with the Holiday Inn formed the perfect springboard to catapult him into Green Park as its general manager in 1996.
"The managing director of Diana group, Murali Krishna Reddy, whom I consider as my mentor, invited me to take over the hotel, which was as at its ebb, to give it a turnaround. Initially I was hesitant but later took it over as a challenge. When one is working for a big group, he or she is like a tiny fish in a pond. Here I was given the liberty to chart my own course for results. And today here we are. Green Park has become a household name within a short period of less than a decade and has won the 'Best economy business hotel of the year-2001' award.''
On the success, which is elevating him shortly to undertake greater and more arduous tasks at the company's headquarters in Hyderabad, he says, "Before taking up the charge I made an unofficial survey and had come to understand that people of this place need something new to be enticed. So I decided to give the message that this is a new hotel and has nothing to do with the past. On the advice of my managing director I took the F&B route to bring the people to the hotel, and that's how the food festivals started. So far we have completed 105 festivals on various themes. With the success of the festivals the restaurants got filled up, to be followed gradually by room occupancy. Green Park has almost 85 per cent occupancy on any given day and that is pretty good by any standards in this city.''
His philosophy is simple. It consists of 3'Fs (fast, focussed and flexible) and 3'Cs (care, concern and commitment). "Touch the heart of the customer by employing the above principles and you shall win him or her over, I tell my staff.'' Man management is the crucial part of any business, be it within the organisation or outside.
Madhu Nair believes in striking a personal equation both with his staffers and customers, irrespective of the department and social status. No wonder, that has worked wonders for him. While his employees see him as a hard taskmaster on one side and a friend, philosopher and guide on the other, his customers, especially children, adore him for his ability to get-together in a short time. Madhu Nair's success was crowned by the conferment of the 'Best general manager of the year in India for economy hotels' in 2000.
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