Award: Lifetime Achievement
PRS ‘BIKI’ OBEROI
Executive Chairman of EIH Limited (flagship company of The Oberoi Group)
Age: 85
Interests outside of work: Horse rearing until a few years ago
Why he won this award: After inhe-riting the company from his father, Oberoi turned the business into a premium brand in world hospitality. In the process, he created the luxury travel segment in Indian hospitality
Our car enters the driveway at Oberoi Farms in the outskirts of Delhi and, as if on cue, the skies open up. It is a welcome change from an extended and gruelling summer.
It is also appropriate that this refreshing turn in the elements takes place at the home of India’s quintessential hotelier Prithvi Raj Singh ‘Biki’ Oberoi who, for over 50 years, has made his guests’ comfort a priority.
Spread over 70 acres, Oberoi’s office-cum-home is as well-maintained as his hotels. Inside, the executive chairman of EIH Limited (the flagship company of The Oberoi Group) is even more immaculate.
The 85-year-old walks in for the interview, his Cuban cigar firmly in place. He is as sharply turned out as he would be while welcoming guests at any of his 30 hotels across the world. The neat crop of grey hair adds to his natural elegance; the tie is perfectly knotted, the cuff links are just right and the shoes are shining, but not blindingly so. Biki Oberoi is an ideal advertisement for his business.
As is his story. Over the next hour-and-a-half, Forbes India spoke to the man about his remarkable life and career that has created a homegrown hospitality brand renowned globally for its service and quality.
Consider that in 1984, he had inherited ambition—and a nine-hotel chain from his father and The Oberoi Group founder, Rai Bahadur Mohan Singh Oberoi. Today, not only has the group grown in size but, more significantly, “the Oberoi” was a name associated with a trading community. [Biki] Oberoi turned that name into a luxury brand,” says SS Mukherji, vice-chairman and CEO, The Oberoi Group.
The 2014 Forbes India Leadership Awards’ Lifetime Achievement awardee has a larger-than-life personality that manifests in conversations over the following days, as we talk to his family, associates and former colleagues. His eight decades can, in some part, be recounted through their eyes—they, after all, best reflect and understand his legacy. And, it turns out, everyone has a Biki Oberoi story to tell.
Take son Vikram Oberoi, 50, who thinks back to his schooldays for his ‘Biki’ story. “I was 10 and had travelled to Wales with him to get admitted to a boarding school,” he recalls. “At the school, a boy warned me against joining the place. ‘This is a terrible school, go back,’ the boy [had] said.”
When he shared this fear with his father, the older Oberoi said, “I will be in London for two days. If you don’t like the school, call me and I will pick you up.” Vikram was relieved. “He could have said, get on with it, or slug it out. But he made sure he was there for my support,” says Vikram, who is the joint managing director of The Oberoi Group. (Incidentally, he ended up loving the school.)
Vikram was merely continuing a family tradition. Biki Oberoi was 10 when his father took him for admission in St Paul’s School in Darjeeling in Bengal, in 1939. It was around the time Mohan Singh was trying to establish himself as an hotelier, having bought his first property, Shimla’s Clarkes Hotel, in 1934.
Arjun Oberoi, like his cousin Vikram, is joint managing director of The Oberoi Group as well as its chief planning officer. Though Arjun had always been fond of his uncle, it was only after his father Tikki Oberoi passed away in 1984 that he got to know him better. “He always says that building new properties is not just about turnover… they should last a lifetime. The property should be 10 years ahead of its time,” says Arjun.
Oberoi followed up Rajvilas with similar iconic properties in Agra, Udaipur and Ranthambore (Amarvilas, Udaivilas and Vanyavilas respectively). “I would brief the architect on what I wanted from the hotel. In the case of Agra, I couldn’t have a hotel in the Mughal style in front of the Taj Mahal. At the same time, I also didn’t want a glass box. Instead, I suggested Moorish architecture. It gels well with the local environment and complements the Taj,” says Oberoi. While his hotels may look like ageless palaces, the facilities have always been modern and the service top-notch.
(This story appears in the 17 October, 2014 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
Your article did not mention MS Oberoi's Australian years when the group bought and refurbished the iconic Windsor Hotel Melbourne and built a new, 5-star Hotel in Adelaide. At this time M S Oberoi was around 60 (1980) and found a farm on the outskirts of Adelaide where he built a large and gracious home designed by his hotel architects complete with servants quarters and service bells. He had intended to live here long term, however, his family fled Australia after the tragic death of his son around the time of completion. This fine building is now my home and I thank M S Oberoi for the excellence in detail and design.
on Apr 5, 2016Wonderful!!!
on Jan 16, 2016British did a lot good to us...when they had to leave India post independence... they sold off their businesses as a good gesture....at peanut prices.... truly the famous quote as saying \"a person who goes nowhere actually gets there...\"
on Oct 18, 2014truly a professional organisation and it will remain like that for many more years.
on Oct 14, 2014it\'s really a pleasure to work with the oberoi group, i enjoyed my 12 years of beginning of my hospitality careers, i am still missing that group
on Oct 14, 2014I think there s an error on this page. I know for sure that Mohan Singh Oberoi, was a clerk at Oberoi Clarkes, not the Cecil, in Shimla. Please check your facts.
on Oct 14, 2014Hi Priya, Thanks for writing in. I again checked my fact on the official website of the Group - http://www.oberoihotels.com/about_us/founder_chairman.asp It mentions that Mohan Singh Oberoi started off in the Cecil Hotel as a clerk. Following is the specific para - Rai Bahadur Mohan Singh Oberoi completed his primary education in Rawalpindi and moved to Lahore for his Bachelor's degree. Shortly thereafter, to flee the ravages of a virulent plague, he went to seek his fortune in Shimla, the summer capital of British India. Arriving penniless, he found a job at a monthly salary of INR 50, as the front desk clerk at the Cecil Hotel. Today, The Oberoi Group owns the hotel The Oberoi Cecil where the young Mr. Oberoi found his metier." Regards, Prince.
on Oct 14, 2014Exactly right. He started at the Cecil, then Cecil Delhi, then bought out Cecil, then Grand Calcutta, then Imperial, then Orissa\'s Oberoi, then Clarkes Simla, then Oberoi Delhi and goes on...
on May 22, 2015