MAM
Megha Ajgaonkar named GM- sales at The Leela Palaces, Hotels & Resorts
Mumbai: The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts on Friday announced the appointment of Megha Ajgaonkar as general manager for sales division. In her new role, Ajgaonkar will spearhead and drive sales performance thus fortifying The Leela’s sales and distribution network and strategies.
Ajgaonkar brings with her about two decades of diverse experience in hospitality and business development. Prior to joining The Leela, her most recent role was with Marriott International as area director of sales & distribution West India for Marriott South Asia. Over the course of her vast career, Ajgaonkar has worked with brands such as Taj, Starwood, and Marriott.
She has been instrumental in the successful opening of multiple luxury brands across the country including the JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar and positioning the Ritz Carlton Pune. Her sales leadership aided luxury hotels including the W Goa, St Regis Mumbai, and JW Marriott Juhu in expanding their market share performance.
A hotel management graduate and an alumnus of IHM, Aurangabad, Ajgaonkar began her journey through the Taj Management Training Program and is also a certified sales trainer. She is the recipient of multiple industry accolades for leading from the front and driving sales performance in her former roles.
Welcoming Ajgaonkar on board, The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts, chief operating officer, Anuraag Bhatnagar said, “With her extensive experience, understanding of key markets, and strong relationships, we are confident that Megha will further enhance and strengthen The Leela’s sales and distribution network and strategies.”
Brands
Workday unveils Sana, a new AI tool for businesses
New conversational interface, 300+ skills and deep integrations aim to turn AI from sidekick to operator
CALIFORNIA: Workday has fired a fresh salvo in the enterprise AI race, rolling out “Sana”, a system it touts as “superintelligence for work”, designed not merely to assist, but to act. The pitch is blunt: stop dabbling with disconnected copilots and start letting AI run the plumbing of business.
Unveiled globally on March 20, Sana arrives as a three-part stack, Sana for Workday, a conversational interface; a self-service agent with more than 300 skills; and Sana Enterprise, which plugs into tools from Gmail and Outlook to Salesforce and Slack. The aim is to collapse the sprawl of enterprise software into a single AI-led workflow engine.
At its core, Sana promises four things: find, act, build and automate. Employees can query internal data, execute tasks such as updating records or contracts, generate dashboards, and trigger multi-step workflows, all within the same interface. The twist is where it sits, inside Workday’s existing systems, inheriting their permissions, compliance rules and audit trails.
“AI only works in the enterprise when it’s connected to trusted, deterministic systems,” said Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and chief executive. “Sana is what brings it all together… a powerful way for people to search, reason and orchestrate work across the enterprise.”
The critique of current AI deployments is familiar, flashy pilots, little real impact. Workday’s answer is to embed intelligence where decisions are made and actions executed. Gerrit Kazmaier, president, product and technology, framed it as a shift from suggestion to execution: “AI agents take action using trusted context, not just provide suggestions… a single experience where AI is embedded directly in the flow of work.”
Early adopters suggest traction. Berner claims 90 per cent adoption within 40 days, scrapping 400 ChatGPT licences. Cheffelo calls Sana its “AI backbone”, while Telavox says the conversation has shifted from automating tasks to reimagining entire processes.
Analysts, too, see a broader play. Josh Bersin described the integration as “a major milestone”, arguing it could reshape both customer and employee experience by making AI-native workflows the default.
Sana is being bundled via Workday’s Flex Credits, no separate licence, no added paywall, a move that lowers friction and speeds adoption. Meanwhile, Sana Enterprise extends the system beyond Workday, allowing users to search documents, schedule meetings or track project tickets across multiple platforms in one conversation.
The bet is clear: whoever controls the workflow, controls the future of enterprise software. With Sana, Workday is trying to move AI from a helpful assistant to an invisible operator. If it works, the software menus may vanish, and with them, the way work itself is done.
