DEI Advisors Podcast

Nimesh Patel, General Counsel - Americas, IHG, Interviewed by Rachel Humphrey

May 31, 2023 David Kong
DEI Advisors Podcast
Nimesh Patel, General Counsel - Americas, IHG, Interviewed by Rachel Humphrey
Show Notes Transcript

Nimesh talks about taking a risk moving from a law firm to in-house and how learning different aspects of the business led to his current role as GC. He discusses developing new skills to lead a team for the first time and how mentors shaped his development. Nimesh talks about work life balance, owning it, and being your authentic self.



Rachel Humphrey:

I am Rachel Humphrey with d e I advisors. We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering personal success, and today I am very excited to welcome to the program Nimesh Patel, general Counsel Americas from I H G. If you don't know Nimesh, I encourage you to look at his bio on LinkedIn or on the d e I advisor's website, but Nimesh, welcome to the

Nimesh Patel:

program. Thanks. Happy to be here

Rachel Humphrey:

ish. We're gonna get started right away. We're gonna spend about 30 minutes together today. And I wanna start off with one of my favorite questions, which is your path to leadership. One of the things I love so much about the hospitality industry is, nope, two people have to follow the exact same trajectory to get to where they want to be with their career. So tell us a little bit about your journey and how you ended up where you are today.

Nimesh Patel:

Sure. I I was debating how far to go back, but I, With me. I'll go all the way back. So the my parents immigrate from India in the sixties, so cuz it has a lot to do with who I am. And my dad was an engineer, came over in the sixties and ended up in Tampa, Florida. And the funny thing is, my name is Patel. But I had nothing to do with the hotel industry until I came and worked at I h G, which is a lot of people are surprised and assumed I had something to do with the hotel industry when I was coming up when I got to a certain age and coming in and was a lawyer. So the interesting part, my parents, my dad, again, engineer, grew up in Tampa. When we moved to Tampa, we were one of the handful of Indian people that were there. And as is pretty typical, they were looking for folks that spoke like them, cook like them, talk like them, and had the same experience. So we ended up hanging out with a lot of the Indian people in in Tampa there's about less than 10 families. And but half of'em were motel owners and they owned. It was the 5, 6, 7 room motels. Probably a typ, pretty fairly typical story of the first generation of o of now hotel owners. And they lived in the back of the front desk and, the living space was behind the front desk and they, the whole family lived there. They cleaned the the rooms. Sometimes I would spend the night there and we'd get the run around the motel all over the place, having a blast. And it was, Really interesting because it was such, such a different experience for me. Going from, where I lived in a house to the motel and seeing how they lived and the commitment to hard work. The, how much they struggled when they were starting up and then they, added a room to the motel or added a few rooms, then were able to get a brand. And it really was interesting cuz I, again, I didn't end up in the hotel industry. Until 2004 when I joined i h g, but I'll always remember that time, going to those people's houses. And then as Tampa grew the hotel industry obviously grew a ton as well. And I know a lot of those folks that are now hotelier and big years in Florida. So anyway, just a little piece of my personal history, but. I I went to law school, was, thought I was actually, when I went to undergrad, I thought I was gonna be a, I wanted to work on Wall Street. I was a finance major. I wanted to work on Wall Street, and I got through a few years of school at Florida and realized if I wanted to get an MBA school, I was gonna have to go work for a couple years. And I decided that wasn't really what I wanted to do. I wanted to go straight through school and get started. So then law school was the next best choice. And which is not the reason a lot of lawyers end up going to law school, that it was just convenient, which really, truly was why I ended up going. And it was, I felt it was a way I could end up working in a business environment someday. Not going the full, the straight business route, the NBA route. And so I became a lawyer, graduated from law school at Emory, and then. Again, was not sure what type of lawyer I wanted to be. You were saying earlier you knew, sounds like you always knew you wanted to be a litigator. My wife was the same way. I wasn't sure what kind of lawyer I wanted to be, so I like, just luckily was clerking. Ended up clerking for a judge for a couple years and saw the saw, saw the practice of law at its best at its core, and then decided what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a litigator and worked at a commercial litigation firm. Ended up coming to I h G because they were looking for someone to manage litigation of all things. And I was a little hesitant to come work in-house at I h g at the time. Just wasn't sure what it would be. I would miss the juice, loved, love litigating, loved my, the firm I was at and came to i h g. Not sure what would become of my career, and I was. Literally I, I was lucky enough to have a great boss by the name of David Ham, who was a great mentor to me as I was coming up. Lot of older lawyers were there, experienced lawyers, sorry. Experienced lawyers were in the department at the time and they were extremely generous with their time. So I spent a lot of days back when we were in the office, nine to, not nine to five more than. More than nine to five. We're in the office 10, 12 hours a day and we came in every day. And what did I do? I came in, went to lunch with somebody every day, we'd walk somewhere. I sat in the offices and asked as many questions I could possibly think of. And that's how I learned. And was a, was really in many ways an individual contributor for a long time as I was, in my early part of my career at I H G I. Took on differing areas of responsibility. One of the great things about the hotel industry being in-house at i h G, has been the variety of work that I've been able to touch over time. I started out as a litigator. I touch supported purchasing, did hotel operations, franchising, all these different things, and every year I seem to learn something. So it has stayed really interesting. But I was a, I was largely an individual contributor. For a while until I was given the franchising team back in, I think it was 2012, and that's when I really realized, I'm, yes, I'm a lawyer. Yes, I do a lot of kind of neat stuff and contribute to the business. But now I have this team of largely of non-lawyers. They were contract administrators, paralegals, but they were, and they were in, they were under another function before. So I had to suddenly learn how to manage, how to interact, how to lead this team that was vital to the success of the region and the company because this was the team that was doing all of the contract, the franchise licensing, and the contracting work for our franchise business. So that was long answer, but that was how I ended up in a leadership role and at I H G for so long.

Rachel Humphrey:

That's incredible. You actually have a lot of incredible nuggets in there that I wanna explore a little bit more. But first I wanted to mention, I always like to share with our audience why I have asked someone to join us because in some way the guest advisors that I interview have impacted. Me, my career, my personal life in some way. And one of the things for me that has been very impactful is I actually knew you in, I'll call it chapter one, when I was a lawyer and representing franchisees, whether it be in. Litigation matters are in negotiation of new agreements. And then I got to know you when I became an executive in the industry. So I've actually, while your role as a lawyer has been continuous, I've gotten to see you with two different perspectives and your the same. Leader in both of those different audiences. And that to me is a really powerful thing to both, to say that as a lawyer you are a leader, but also as an executive, not being different from how you interacted in a legal setting than you do in a corporate setting. And I've really loved that being able to see you from both of those aspects. So I just wanted to share that with you. There's not a lot of people in the lawyer world that I get to see. In both sides. But one of the things I wanted to ask you, you just talked about actually developing new skills. You had to learn how to manage a team. How did you go about developing those new skills? Were there other things along the way in your path to leadership where you said, Hey, for me to be successful now in this broader role, I'm gonna really need to develop a new skillset. And how did you set about going to do

Nimesh Patel:

that? Gosh, it's still, you're always learning. I'm still learning how to do it better, but. The thing that's so nice now for people coming up in organizations is there's so much more content available to you to learn instead of, pre-internet days, early internet days where getting content, getting information and training materials, things like things that were not as as available. So books, you would find books, but. Yeah. One of the things I focused on, I'm still learning how to do it better, is to listen. And I will admit I'm not the greatest listener in the world. I tend to, I've always, when I was, started out early in my career, it's hard for me to sit in meetings and take a backseat and take a breath and just listen and absorb everything and then help. The group, the collective group, try to get to a solution. My tendency has been to hear the question or the problem. Think I have a, I know how to solve this. I got this, I think I have a way to get there. Let's just jump in there and get to it. And to take over a try to, take over a meeting and not let it evolve as it should and let others get their word in. I've really tried. And so I think some people probably on my team would dispute that I've gotten good at it. But I try to really force myself to sit back and listen and let others participate and throw and look. I obviously, lots of people have lots of wonderful ideas and things I never would've thought of. And I've gotta, I've really always tried to force myself to do that.

Rachel Humphrey:

I love that. I think also that you we have heard that from a lot of different leaders that part of that drive to succeed or other things resulted in. Hearing and wanting to solve or thinking they knew the answers. And to actually learn how to accept information and thoughts and strategies from others is a work in progress. But I appreciate your sharing that. You also shared that along the way you asked a lot of questions. You went out to lunch with people that you had great leaders and I will say senior attorneys, not older attorneys, experience in your midst. Talk a little bit about the importance in this industry of mentors, allies, and champions.

Nimesh Patel:

Yeah, it's, I love that it's much more formal now. I participate as a mentor in many of the programs we have at I H G, and it's really fulfilling. I've learned so much from some of the folks I've mentored, but we didn't really have a formal mentoring process when I was, when I started here. So you had to do it yourself. So the Yeah, you had to disco, plop your, plop yourself into people's offices. And thankfully, one, again, one of the great things about this place, this company has been the open door policy of people back when we had offices and everyone had offices, but the willingness of people to spend time with you teaching you, talking to you about, War stories or old things that happen, or things they've learned over the years in an informal setting was invaluable to me when I started here at I H G. I'll tell you, and a law firm is a much, law firms tend to be a little more formal in how they train young lawyers and try to focus on certain skills. But we as a company and as a function within the company, have gotten way better at. At doing this in a much more formal way. It's hard to say, everyone I've worked with that had experience, I never really had, I can't think I was thinking about this before this call, like a spec specific person that I would say that was my mentor, that was my champion. There were lots of people over time that were definitely helpful and I learned a lot from over the years.

Rachel Humphrey:

I love the idea of proactively reaching out, not just to ask questions, but to go to lunch to meet people, to do it that way. Even where there are formal programs in place of trying to absorb as much information. You mentioned earlier on that with each role you had as well, you have learned new skills or learned new aspects of the business. And I wanna talk about that for just a minute. Each of those things might have been considered taking a risk. You might have left one department for another or left the law firm, as you said, the life that you had to go in-house to be at i h G. How do you tackle risks? How do you process them? Do you consider yourself a risk taker, a little risk averse? And how do you ultimately decide which risks are worth your taking a stab at?

Nimesh Patel:

Yeah there's personal risk, right? And then there's the risk You're willing to let your company take or advice in the advice you give personal risk. I'm actually, I'm very risk averse in kind of everything I do which is surprising to some people. But, investment style over the years, how I do things. I'm always very thoughtful. I think through things. In in it was hard for me to make the jump to go in-house. That was definitely a risk because you go from a firm where you can feel like you have some control over things and where things are gonna go and how your career's gonna develop to being a in-house lawyer, where lots of things are largely dependent on the direction of the business, and you know how the business does, and you don't control that. You're a, you're not a revenue maker, you're a revenue taker. You're a cost center as opposed to a place where you're making money for the company, which is completely different than the law firm environment. So I talk to people I trust I still talk to my dad. It's fun. He's way more risk averse than even me, but it's always great to talk to him and think I'm being risky because I don't agree with what he's telling me to do. But he took the biggest risk of all, leaving the small town in India to come to America, just. It's comical to me that he is so risk averse when he, literally went across the world without any way to contact his family other than, a phone call here and there, a letter. And then he's so risk averse, maybe that's why. But yeah, I would, if I was, I would say if I was talking to myself when I'm younger, it was take more risks when you're young. I tell my kids to do that. I tell. My friends' kids to do that. Take all the risk you can when you're young, when the worst that happens is you end up back in your parents' house. Hopefully that's the worst that happens. And the consequences of taking a risk is just not anywhere near what it is later in life. So that, that, I wish I would've maybe taken some risks more risks when I was younger.

Rachel Humphrey:

You had said earlier that you had wanted to enter the corporate world, work on Wall Street, ended up pivoting to law school and then the career you have now in those early days when you wanted a corporate career, was it because you knew you wanted to be a leader for a young age, you just wanted to be in the corporate world, and at what point in your career, Would you have maybe pivoted to say, I am now in a leadership role, or I serve as a leader within the environment that I'm

Nimesh Patel:

in? Yeah. I can't say that I ever consciously thought I wanted to be a leader in any role. I like in school, undergrad, law school, the leadership was never something I thought of actively. It was. Finding a career that I can be successful at, that I enjoy, that I can grow in and have a career in. But leadership was just not there. It wasn't, you it, I don't know. I guess it was, maybe it was talked about back in the eighties. But I don't recall it really being something that people stro strive to. You were, they were natural leaders. They were those folks. But it wasn't something. And so the point, and even when I started here, when I was a lawyer working at the firm I did think, yeah, I'll be a partner here and run, run the firm. But it wasn't, I still, I don't think I, I think back that I was thinking in the context of, I'm gonna lead this whole firm. This is gonna be great. It was, I don't think I did. And coming here at I H G. Again, I was just wanted to do interesting work and fun work and work hard and do well. And it wasn't until I was given this team, and I think it was 2012, the franchise licensing team here. Here's a team that wasn't under the legal department, NEMA Sheer in charge of this team. Now run this team. That's when I started. Okay, so now I gotta actively think about leading. How do I engage with the team? How do I make sure. I'm doing right by them and get the best out of'em. So that was when I first started thinking about, which is, yeah that's, that was that was, that's 2012. So it's only 11 years ago. It's not that long ago. Later in my career, I.

Rachel Humphrey:

Let's take those lessons and talk a little bit about the pandemic, even though it, even though the Declaration of Pandemic may be over. Yeah. Leading during the pandemic many of us responded in very different ways, but we've all obviously talked about There were no mentors. There was no guidebook, there was no resource you could pick up to say, how do you do this before? And we relied on each other so much. Being in the legal department though, had an additional set of pressures. You not only had all of the business pressures, you've mentioned risk earlier. From a legal standpoint, there were also any number of. Legal considerations that had never been dealt with before. When you look back over the last couple of years, which of your maybe personality traits, leadership skills, do you think really helped you to successfully lead during a time of such uncertainty?

Nimesh Patel:

Yeah, that's, I sometimes don't want to think about that. Time period. It was a rough time back in March of 2020 and for many reasons, but professionally at the, as far as the company was concerned, I wasn't even in this role then. So I moved into the, to the GC role in October of 2020. So my predecessor had actually already internally thought he was gonna retire in spring of 2020. And then they pushed it a bit when when March happened. But, so he pushed to October and so I moved into this role in October of that year. So I had, I started off the pandemic survival mode. I was, leading the franchise and litigation team at the time. So we were working through trying to engage with our hotel owners, trying to figure out what we can do to help them stay afloat. Changing agreements, te temporary closure agreements. Trying to come up with what do we need, all the policies within the company that we were running around trying to figure out how to deal with things. Leading, I actually had to step into this role virtually, essentially, or was, we were virtual, so it was, I stepped into the role virtually, so that was really weird and a odd way to move into a role. And I had colleagues and I was suddenly, I was I was in charge of them and they reported to me, so I had to. In many ways it was easy because I knew these people. I knew many of those people. So I didn't have to worry about that, but I had to make sure I was connected with people in a whole different way than I did before. So I had to spend, I consciously had to spend a lot of time while at the same time doing all the business work, staying in touch with people as much as I possibly could in a one-on-one way like this. Which, the zoom and the teams and all the virtual ways that we were trying to stay in, in touch with people. I had to consciously, and I did consciously try to interact with as many people in small settings as I could so that I could get to know them in a bit of a different way and to make sure they were okay. Cuz that was really important and I had to be conscious of all that stuff. It, in, in, during that time period, I know all the leaders, everyone was worried about, People making sure they they were okay personally. On top of the professional stuff. Not that we don't worry about it now, but it was so important. So those were it was a real time of transition for me, and I had to jump in there and do the best I can. I could I

Rachel Humphrey:

like the intentionality of it too, of saying I, I recognize that there was a complete. Different strategy that would have to be implemented, not just to assume the new role, but to continue to build relationships and effectively lead a new team. And I wasn't planning on going in this direction, but I'm going to now that you mentioned then, relationship building and networking, either within the company or on the outside. One of the things that I think is pretty cool about the hospitality industry is you can. Build relationships and network in a way that's very suited to your own personality. You and I might do it very differently, but end up with similar networks at the end of the day. How have you tailored your relationship, building your networking, whether it be in the hospitality community, the legal community that's really well suited to your comfort

Nimesh Patel:

level. Yeah, and this is again, something I didn't consciously do, right or wrong, probably wrong. I didn't do it consciously when I was younger, but it actually happened and now I look back oh yeah, that was my personal board of directors. So that was my network, that was my crew. For me, for lawyers, it's, I have my group of lawyer friends, which you're always have. And then you definitely want to have your group of non-lawyer friends. Because it, you get so many different perspectives but each you can go to with different things because they appreciate and understand different things and can help you and advise you on different things. In the company, I will say pre pandemic, I'm a very outgoing, walk around the floor, pop into people's offices, how you doing? Got to know people really well just by that. And it was really important to me and I. Didn't realize how much I enjoyed that and missed that until it was gone. Interesting. So that was huge for me, still is huge for me of getting around and walking around, seeing people informally in the office. So getting to know people that way. But then I did, again, over time I have this group of people and only one of those people are now still at the company, actually when I was. Many years ago at I H G formed this group of friends that were in different functions in the company that we met and got together and then routinely tried to get together as much as we could, and we still get together now out now that they've left the company and onto different things. But we and they were all at the same level as me. And we all moved up at different time periods within the company. And then, as I said, some of them left and it was great, not only from the fact that I, there's people I trusted implicitly that I could go to that were in different functions of the company, and I could just go to them with anything in their area and they could help me get to where I needed to get to or help me. Solve it, but also it was such a great perspective and a real perspective and a transparent perspective of what's going on in the company and someone I could rely on to gimme some feedback on something. And now, professionally, careers, life, kids, it I'm still, we still talk about that stuff, which has been really great and I encourage all the the younger the younger professionals as they're coming up, and anyone actually to. To do that, if you could do it consciously. Easier said than done.

Rachel Humphrey:

It is, but I love that concept of a personal board of directors. I know we've been talking about that a lot the last couple of years of having. A trusted support system that's made up of a very diverse group of people from careers to ages to upbringings and other things. Cuz I think you're right, you then can get very different perspectives on a lot of aspects. You just mentioned talking with your trusted board of directors about family and kids. And career choices and other things. And certainly as an attorney, as an executive, you've had a very demanding career. And when we think about work-life balance or management, we tend to only ask women that. And one of the things I've said is, why does nobody ask my husband, how is it being a parent and being on the road all the time or working long hours? And so I wanna ask you work-life balance, it doesn't have to just be about children or a spouse. It can be hobbies or passions or self-care or wellness or any other types of things. How are you on managing or achieving balance in your personal life and when, with your career? And maybe how has that evolved over time?

Nimesh Patel:

Yeah, it is, and it's, again, this is again, something that wasn't focused on early on in my career. You just. The way you did well was to grind and work and be in the office and not focus on those o other things, which, it's so nice now to be able to, I know early in my career trying to sneak out to go catch a kids and in some sporting event or get home in time for dinner and you're your bosses and people were looking around for you and you're worried they were, you were gonna get ding for not being in the office and all that FaceTime stuff. That was really not pleasant. And I'm glad that things have shifted significantly in the other way. I just, I wish I worked 20 years later. I could have taken advantage of some of that stuff. But putting that aside the yeah, the balance. Look there, you gotta have hobbies. You gotta have perspective. I've tried and now I, now I talk to lots of people that are close to retirement or have retired, and you start seeing that other end of what it looks like. And if you just focused on work your whole life, you're not gonna be left with a lot at the end of your working career. And I don't wanna be that guy. So you definitely, I do focus on things you do with your spouse, things you do with your friends, things you do, even with work, people outside of work. You gotta do all those things and it's hopefully you can find some things that give you some joy outside of the office and and make you happy and take your mind off work to the extent you can a little bit, cuz it makes you so much better when you're in the office And then finding joy. I know that we had a we did one of these leadership courses called leading With Purpose. And one of the, the nuggets I got out of it was, you gotta find the joy in your The work, you gotta find your nuggets. I really do enjoy work. I do enjoy solving problems, but you've gotta maybe force yourself to think about what does bring you joy in the office and try to focus on projects that maybe give you that.

Rachel Humphrey:

I love the idea of thinking about what do you have when you get to the end of your career as well. Because I think that in my retirement I've been able to be very reflective of. A lot of things, whether it be parenting or self-care and other things that I wish I could dial back 25, 30 years ago and think about differently, but I like the concept of thinking about it all along the way so that you don't end up. At this point, we were like, great, I've had this incredible career, but what else what else could I have done? Yeah. We are gonna run short on time here. I wanted to just follow up on a couple of things. One, you mentioned earlier your advice to your younger self would be to take more risks. And one of the reasons I love this question is because I do think that we are continual works in progress and reflection is really important. Would you have other advice to your. College self at, at any point of where, how you, how things ended up for you now?

Nimesh Patel:

Yeah, I guess two, two things. One, one, the easy one is I think every parent will say, en enjoy those. If you have kids, really enjoy them when they're young and try to focus on them as much as you possibly can. Cuz they grow up so fast and that's they're adults and and it's a different phase. So I would that's the easy one. I think most parents probably say that and. Maybe they, people don't do take the advice very well, but the the other one is so there's take risk. And then for me, like culturally, again I think I said at the beginning when I was a young little Indian kid when I was trying to fit in Tampa and I was trying to fit in and I always tried to fit in and I was always, you're always trying to like, hide, maybe not be as not be your. As as proud of your culture and where you came from, as maybe I should have, and now as I get older, and obviously the world's a much different place and it's a lot easier to do these things, but that's the one thing I would've maybe, would've wished when I was younger, embraced that stuff more than maybe I did. Not that I didn't, but yeah, I would've embraced some of that stuff more, I think, and owned it instead of trying to just fit in for the sake of fitting

Rachel Humphrey:

it. Wow, that's incredibly powerful. I appreciate your sharing that. As our wrap up question, I wanna ask you, considering the motto of d e i advisors and empowering personal success, is there one final piece of advice you'd like to share with our

Nimesh Patel:

audience? Yeah, it's what I was just saying was own it. Just don't fitting in is great. You gotta get along you gotta deescalate, you gotta try to do those things, but, Just own, own yourself. Own, own it. Whatever background you have, whatever cultures you come from whatever it is don't shy away from it because it may not always work, but at least your best, authentic self. I love that.

Rachel Humphrey:

An authentic self. That's an excellent way for us to wrap things up on Miash. I am incredibly appreciative for your time today, your leadership in the industry the relationship that we have had for a long time now. So thank you very much for joining us today. To our audience, I would say thank you so much for tuning in. If you liked what you heard today, we hope you'll head over to d ei advisors.org. Or to any of the streaming services to hear from other industry leaders on their paths to leadership and the lessons they've learned along the way. Nash Patel, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. This was fun.

Nimesh Patel:

Great.