Priya Paul took over The Park hotels at 22, and turned them into one of India’s sharpest hospitality brands

Most founder stories begin with a decision to start. Some of the most consequential ones begin with a phone call. Priya Paul was twenty-two in 1990 when she took over Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels after the death of her father, Surrendra Paul. Three decades later, the company is publicly listed on Indian exchanges, and The Park is widely regarded as one of the country’s most distinctive design-led hospitality brands.

An accidental beginning

The Apeejay Surrendra Group, the larger family business behind The Park Hotels, had interests across tea, shipping, retail and hospitality. The hotel chain itself had been built up under Surrendra Paul. In April 1990 he was assassinated in Assam by militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) while travelling to visit one of the group’s tea estates. His death left a leadership vacuum at a moment when the group’s hospitality business was still figuring out its identity.

Priya Paul had studied economics at Wellesley College in the United States, graduating in 1988, and had joined The Park New Delhi as marketing manager under her father that same year. In her own later accounts, she has spoken plainly about how underprepared she felt when leadership of the hotel business fell to her in 1990, not for the hospitality industry, but for the responsibility of chairing a substantial Indian business at twenty-two.

From mid-tier hotels to boutique design

The Park’s early identity in the 1990s was that of a mid-tier hotel chain. Through the late 1990s and 2000s, Paul repositioned it carefully into the design-led, boutique luxury segment, with properties in Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and beyond, each given a distinct architectural and interior identity.

That shift was not a marketing exercise. It required serious investment in architecture, design, food and beverage, and brand. The Park’s nightclubs and restaurants became, in their own right, brands within brands, in many cities they have outlasted whole generations of competition.

The 2024 IPO

In 2024, Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels completed its IPO on Indian stock exchanges. The listing was significant for at least two reasons. It marked a generational milestone for the broader Apeejay Surrendra Group, and it brought a woman-chaired Indian hospitality company onto public markets, still a rare combination.

Awards and the policy voice

Paul received the Padma Shri in 2012 for her contribution to trade and industry. She has been an unusually consistent voice on Indian hospitality policy across the years, serving on industry bodies, government advisory groups and global hospitality forums.

The visibility matters because hospitality, like fashion and aviation, is still globally tilted toward male leadership at the chair level. Priya Paul’s tenure has been long enough, and consistent enough, to make a point of its own.

“You do not have time to wait until you feel ready. The ready feeling tends to arrive after you have already done the thing.”

What founders can take from the Priya Paul story

The Priya Paul story is unusual because it begins with inheritance, not invention. But that does not make it easier. Taking over a complex services business at twenty-two is, in some respects, harder than starting one fresh, because the founder has to keep operating cash flows alive while simultaneously rebuilding identity.

The takeaway, then, is for inheritors as much as for starters. A family business that is going to last past one generation has to be rebuilt by the second one. The Park is rare in that the second-generation rebuild was performed in public, over decades, by a woman who never stopped pointing to the work itself rather than to her own biography.

The food & beverage layer at The Park

One under-told part of The Park’s story is the food-and-beverage layer. Hotel groups generally treat F&B as a cost-recovery or amenity line. The Park treated it as a standalone brand-building business: the group’s restaurants and nightclubs (Aqua, Roxy, Someplace Else and others over the years) became locally famous brands in their host cities, often outlasting their host hotels’ renovation cycles. That choice is part of why The Park’s properties have stayed culturally relevant in cities where newer hotel groups have arrived and aged.

Frequently asked questions about Priya Paul

Who is Priya Paul?

Priya Paul is the chairperson of Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels Limited, the company behind The Park hotel chain. She took over leadership of the company in 1990 at the age of 22, following the sudden death of her father Surrendra Paul. She has chaired the company for over three decades, and is a recipient of the Padma Shri (2012). Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels completed its IPO on Indian stock exchanges in 2024.

How did The Park become a design-led hospitality brand?

The Park’s early identity in the 1990s was that of a mid-tier hotel chain. Through the late 1990s and 2000s, Paul repositioned it carefully into the design-led, boutique luxury segment, with properties in Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and beyond, each given a distinct architectural and interior identity. The repositioning required serious investment in architecture, design, food and beverage, and brand, it was not a marketing exercise. The Park’s nightclubs and restaurants became brands within brands in their own right, and have outlasted multiple cycles of competition.

What was the significance of the 2024 IPO?

In 2024, Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels completed its IPO on Indian stock exchanges. The listing was significant for two reasons. It marked a generational milestone for the broader Apeejay Surrendra Group, which has interests across tea, shipping and retail beyond hospitality. And it brought a woman-chaired Indian hospitality company onto public markets, still a rare combination at the chair level globally.

Is this primarily an inheritance story or a founder story?

It is both, and that is what makes it interesting. The Priya Paul story begins with inheritance rather than invention, but inheriting a complex services business at 22 is in some respects harder than starting one fresh, the founder has to keep operating cash flows alive while simultaneously rebuilding identity. A family business that is going to last past one generation has to be rebuilt by the second one. The Park is rare in that the second-generation rebuild was performed in public, over decades, by a woman who has consistently pointed at the work itself rather than at her own biography.

What is Priya Paul’s net worth?

There is no net-worth figure for Priya Paul from a reputable, independently-verifiable source. Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels listed publicly (IPO February 2024) and she is a Forbes Asia 50 Power Businesswomen honoree, but no credible personal net-worth disclosure exists. The numbers that appear on celebrity or “net worth” aggregator sites are unsourced and inconsistent, so, in line with our editorial policy,