Rotana senior officials.
Rotana has undergone big changes at the top as Co-Founder, Selim El Zyr passes the lead on to Omer Kaddouri, the new President & CEO of Rotana. El Zyr will continue to serve in an advisory role as the Vice Chairman of the Board moving forward.
Kaddouri, the former Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer will take the helm as the new President & CEO of Rotana. In turn his own role has been taken over by Guy Hutchinson, who moves to Rotana from his previous role as Vice President Operations – India for Hilton.
The executive change is expected to pave the way for Rotana’s aggressive expansion plans to operate 100 hotels by 2020.
El Zyr has headed the company since he co-founded it in 1992 together with Nasser Al Nowais, Chairman Rotana.
“It’s definitely a new era in the history of Rotana but one that has been carefully orchestrated and planned to enable Rotana to continue to break new ground in the hospitality industry. Rotana has over the past few years proved that it can migrate its successful brand and operational formula to regions beyond the Middle East. We will continue to push ahead in exciting new markets such as South East Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa, following an approach that has worked very well for us in the past – growing organically and growing in markets that we understand,” Al Nowais said.
Concluding, Al Nowais says “Omer will be the right colleague that will lead the company moving forward with its aggressive expansion to operate a 100 hotels by 2020 and we will be by his side, Selim and I, to support him throughout his own exciting journey and that of Rotana”.
The Peninsula
