Shruti Shibulal
CEO & Director Tamara Leisure Experiences
Shruti Shibulal has carved a space for herself in the niche hospitality segment and through her hospitality venture, Tamara Leisure Experiences, she is at the forefront of promoting sustainable living and responsible tourism in India. She is one of India’s next-generation entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry and was named as one of the five World Economic Forum’s YGLs (Young Global Leaders) from India in 2017.
Shruti Shibulal strives to make Tamara synonymous with responsible tourism by incorporating principles of sustainability into the development and operations of each of Tamara’s properties and creating impactful employment within their respective communities.
She is also involved in many organisations and foundations that provide educational opportunities and healthcare assistance to underprivileged sections of society, uplifting young women from vulnerable backgrounds and those focussed on industry-relevant skilling, building careers, and creating communities.
About engaging and empowering people, a few key areas of impact which are especially close to Shruti’s heart include building businesses that will benefit future generations.
She finds that climate responsive policies, human capital building, and gender parity are among the components essential to this vision. Therefore, she strives to engineer hiring frameworks and social initiatives that allow them to seek out and collaborate with people who are similarly motivated.
Given the talented, diverse teams she has established through these efforts, now she is able to rely on dedicated work and a commitment towards innovation that is driven and managed by their own people. She is able to catalyse this through continued investment in their teams. This includes setting up techenabled solutions for pan-organisational communications, knowledge sharing and skill-building.
“People are at the heart of all my endeavours. Our values centre upon harmonising people, profit, and the planet. It is exactly why I invest so heavily in our teams and work closely to support local communities to establish an entire ecosystem of human-centric operations. Therefore, I have enormous admiration for leaders and organisations that cater to the holistic well-being of present society as well as future generations.”
Empathy, according to Shruti, is central to our lives as individuals. The pandemic highlighted the importance of this by showing all of us the strength of community support and unity. It is essential to leadership and especially powerful when moulded into conscious business models because it has the ability to significantly impact a great deal of people including employees, guests and vendors. As a responsible hospitality group, thoughtful operations that prioritise people and the planet have been integral to their vision at Tamara. Their offerings and operations at large are rooted in empathy. It is a quality that is foundational to Shruti’s personal and professional definition of leadership.
Next Vacation: Croatia, an exceptionally beautiful country with the ideal mix of history, beaches, and culinary gems.