Brands
Arpita Roy Luthra swaps building materials for lifts at Schindler group
NEW DELHI: Arpita Roy Luthra has joined Schindler group as vice president for north India, handling sales, strategy and marketing—a September 2025 move that marks her shift from fibre cement boards to vertical mobility.
Roy Luthra arrives from Everest Industries, where she spent four years and seven months as national sales and marketing head, driving revenue for the boards and panels division. She turbocharged growth in high-value products by building infrastructure around architect engagement, premium retail and distribution networks, whilst steering new product development through a mix of in-house manufacturing and outsourced partnerships.
Before Everest, she logged nearly two years as head of marketing for Stallion Group in Lagos, managing automotive brands from Hyundai to Porsche across Sub-Saharan Africa. She helped push the conglomerate’s new car market share from 42 per cent to 45 per cent and secured the national distributorship for Bajaj Auto’s three- and four-wheeler business—a $150m annual turnover addition.
Her African chapter also included a 19-month stint at Bharti Airtel’s Netherlands-based international arm, managing enterprise operations across 14 operating companies, and a 15-month run at Crown Paints Kenya. But her longest tenure was nine years at Bharti Airtel in India, where she climbed from assistant manager in corporate sales to deputy general manager heading B2B marketing, overseeing mobility, fixed-line voice and data products.
Earlier stints at Pidilite Industries saw her leading B2B lead generation and key accounts for waterproofing solutions, whilst roles at SAB Miller and Godfrey Phillips India gave her FMCG combat experience in institutional sales.
Roy Luthra’s track record is built on cracking the B2B code—whether pitching premium cars to Nigerian dealers or fibre cement boards to Indian architects. At Schindler, she’ll deploy that playbook in a market where every new tower needs a lift, and competition for developer mindshare is brutal. The question now: can she make elevators as compelling as automobiles?
Brands
Uber launches hotel bookings feature in partnership with Expedia
From hotel bookings to room service at your door, the ride-hailing giant is making its boldest push yet into everyday life
CALIFORNIA: Uber is done being just a taxi app. At its annual GO-GET product event, the world’s leading mobility and delivery platform unveiled a sweeping set of new features designed to plant itself at the centre of how people travel, eat and shop, hotel bookings included.
The headline move is a partnership with Expedia Group that lets Uber users in the United States book hotels directly within the Uber app, with access to a catalogue that will eventually grow to more than 700,000 properties worldwide. Uber One members get 10 per cent back in Uber One credits on all hotel bookings and savings of at least 20 per cent on a rolling list of more than 10,000 hotels globally. Vacation rentals from Vrbo, Expedia Group’s home-rental brand, will be added later this year. The partnership is expected to expand beyond the United States. From June, Uber rides will also be integrated directly into the Expedia app, with push notifications sent to travellers ahead of hotel check-in to book discounted Uber rides for the duration of their stay.
Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of Uber, framed the expansion in terms of the modern condition. “Uber is becoming an app for everything, helping people go, get, and now travel all in one place,” he said. “We’re all living through a moment of real cognitive overload: too many apps, too many decisions, too much noise. At the end of the day, our job is to help people reclaim their time, spending less of it managing the logistics of life and more of it actually living.”
Ariane Gorin, chief executive of Expedia Group, struck a similarly ambitious note. “Travel should feel effortless, and this partnership gets us one step closer to offering a seamless traveller experience,” she said. “By connecting our two-sided marketplace with Uber, we’re bringing Uber rides directly into the Expedia app and Expedia Group’s lodging inventory into the Uber app through our Rapid API technology. Together, we’re helping travellers spend less time planning and more time enjoying the journey.”
Beyond hotels, the product announcements come thick and fast. Travel Mode, available within both the Uber and Uber Eats apps, offers curated recommendations on local favourites, tourist destinations, OpenTable restaurant reservations and on-demand delivery to hotel rooms. Uber One International means the membership programme now works globally, allowing members to earn credits on rides abroad that can be redeemed once back home. A new Shop for Me feature lets users request items from any store, even those not listed on the app. Eats for the Way allows riders in select cities booking an Uber Black or Uber Black SUV to have a drink or snack waiting for them in the car. Voice Bookings, powered by artificial intelligence, lets users book a ride conversationally, without touching their phone. And a redesigned One Search bar consolidates results for places, food and items across the entire Uber platform in a single query.
Uber has now logged more than 72 billion trips since it launched in 2010. The question it is now answering is what comes after the ride. The answer, apparently, is everything else. Whether users want a hotel in Paris, a coffee in the back of a car or a snake plant from the local garden centre, Uber would very much like to be the one to provide it. The app economy’s land grab has a new front-runner.
NOTE: The image used is AI generated and only for representational purposes.
