"We train students to think like operators, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers!"

Kunal Vasudeva, Co-Founder & Managing Director of the Indian School of Hospitality (ISH), on changing what it means to study hospitality in India...

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“As India moves towards a consumption-first future, the country needs people who can design experiences, manage complexity, and understand behaviour.”

What inspired you to co-found the Indian School of Hospitality (ISH)?

Hospitality education in India has been treated as skill training, not education. It was built to produce workers, not thinkers.

I co-founded ISH to challenge that design. We built India's first business school for hospitality to reframe the sector as a serious academic and economic discipline.

I saw young people trained to follow instructions, not lead businesses. I saw institutions built to fill vacancies, not create visionaries. ISH was designed to end that cycle.

How do you see ISH's role in the transformation of hospitality education in India?

ISH established a new grammar for hospitality education in India. We dismantled the outdated hotel management training model that reduced hospitality to operational skills.

We introduced liberal hospitality education as a business discipline. We integrated culinary, management, entrepreneurship, and services into one academic framework.

We built a learning environment where industry sits inside the classroom. We created pathways that begin in India and continue across global campuses. We changed what it means to study hospitality in this country.

What does democratising education mean to you in practice, and how are you bringing that vision to life at ISH?