It’s a kinetic pace for Bickson, who joined Taj in 2003 to lead India’s largest hotel group—one that has been around since 1901. However, it’s the present that has Bickson on his toes. Reframing a hotel group to exist as multiple brands is no easy undertaking. “What we launched over the last five years, and which is now being brought into fruition, is the cleaning up of our brand architecture,” Bickson says. The intent is clear: In order to better compete in the global hotel market, Taj Hotels needs to be more nimble. Bickson’s plan from the get-go was to recast Taj as not a single luxury brand, but as a multi-branded hotel group. It was necessary. “Over the last 30 to 40 years,” Bickson says, “Taj really grew to its scale of about 50 hotels. But what happened was that a lot of deals were made because they were good.” These deals involved taking on previous Holiday Inns or Marriotts, properties far from luxury. “It wasn’t structured,” Bickson says.

Now it is. While Taj is known, for the most part, by its opulent palace hotels (they have 14 such), today, the group boasts four brands: Taj, serving the luxury market; Vivanta by Taj, in the upper-upscale category; Gateway, three-star; and the no-frills Ginger brand (think Red Roof Inn). For Bickson, whose background is staunchly luxury, this was a huge challenge. He attended the famed École Hôtelière Lausanne in Switzerland; trained at such venerable hotels as Hôtel Plaza Athénée, Paris; held the position of vice president and general manager at New York’s The Mark; and also honed his craft at luxury operators Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and Regent. “Launching these brands is interesting to me,” says Bickson. “It’s completely different from my luxury training.”

Bickson’s mentors in the luxury hotel realm include Aman founder Adrian Zecha; Georg Rafael, who sold his Rafael Hotels to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group in 2000; and Bob Burns, who created the Regent brand. At their hotels, Bickson dabbled in all facets—from marketing to food and beverage which, he says, “helps me today because I did everything.” Particularly when it comes to incorporating a restaurant on property. “My first hotel experience after hotel school was at the Mayfair Regent of New York,” he says. “We had La Cirque—and this was 1979. The restaurant was more popular than the hotel.” An F&B experience like this, Bickson says, helps him when he is working with a Jean-Georges Vongerichten, a Michel Nischan or a Masaharu Morimoto on a restaurant concept. “All of that Nobu stuff, we were doing it way back when,” he says.