PLENARY India’s First CVB CEO Q CTP Survives YouCut
Gary Khan WHAT’S YOUR STORY?
The president and CEO of the new Hyderabad Convention & Visitors Bureau tells how the city of his birth came to form India’s first CVB — and how he was chosen to lead it.
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HE CVB WAS CREATED IN APRIL. AND that’s when I was appointed. There was a need for a CVB here only because we
saw that Hyderabad is a booming city; Hyderabad is the IT capital of India, it’s the Silicon Valley of India. And I should know — I lived in San Francisco for, god, for donkey’s years. As a matter of fact, when I was at United Airlines, Silicon Valley was under my geographic territory. Right now we are in the stage where we’re creating an awareness in the global marketplace about the existence of the CVB. So the challenges I assume are going to be basically to make sure that the bid process meets the expectations of the potential client. I lived in the United States for about 30
years. I have an MBA from California, then I joined United Airlines and I worked for United for close to 23 years. I loved everything I did there. I was United’s go-to guy when it came to negotiating global agreements. I did that for
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many, many years, and then I figured that I did my time and I saw that things were basically becoming a little challenging in the United States — you know, the recession and the economic situation. I am a native of this city. I left Hyderabad
when I was very young. My dad worked for the United Nations, so we lived and traveled and went to school in several countries in Africa and Europe. After United, I figured, recogniz- ing what India has today, maybe I can give my services to the city. So I came back. I came back and I did my usual share of networking. And basically I came to recognize that this is what I have and I’m probably the kind of guy that they need to market this city globally, because that’s what I did with United. My client base was all over the world. And I basically took advantage of all the training and experience that I had over there and brought it home. n — As told to Hunter R. Slaton
LOCAL BOY: “I left Hyderabad when I was very young,” said Gary Khan. “I came back, and I came to recognize that I’m probably the kind of guy that they need to market this city globally.”