Accor appoints COO of HotelInvest
John Ozingha has been appointed chief operating officer of HotelInvest, the new owner and investor arm of French hotel group Accor.
HotelInvest was launched in November 2013, alongside HotelServices, the operating and franchisor part of the business.
Dutch-born Ozingha will join Accor on 18 June and will be a member of the group's executive committee.
He studied hotel management in Belgium before obtaining a postgraduate degree in business administration at the Heriott-Watt University Edinburgh. After spending 10 years in the early part of his career with Accor as development director for the UK, Ireland and Benelux, Ozingha went on to work for the Dolce hotel group, Groupe Casino, Carrefour and CBRE Global Investors.
Sébastien Bazin, chairman and chief executive of Accor said that Ozingha has 20 years of experience in real estate as well as in-depth knowledge of the hospitality industry.
"These will be valuable skills for the rapid deployment of Accor's new real estate roadmap. With HotelInvest, Accor has clearly chosen to reinforce its hotel owner and investor activity. Our objective is to consolidate this position and improve the return on our assets. John has the know-how and experience to drive this ambition and meet these objectives together with the HotelInvest teams."
The company, which operates 460,000 rooms across 3,600 hotels worldwide, opened 4,449 rooms between January and March, 85% which were through franchised and management contracts. In the UK, Accor has around 200 hotels.
