Leadership
Namid Mangalji
Namid is the Senior Managing Director and co-founder of EQ Hotels, with over 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry underwriting, acquiring, and managing hospitality assets across North America, Asia, and Europe.
Prior to founding EQ in 2011, he was Executive Vice President of Westmont Hospitality Group and the Representative Director of Westmont Japan Investments KK. His 17 years of experience at Westmont included asset-managing 80 limited-service assets across the US which exited at significant double-digit IRRs, being the Shareholder Representative for Acquisitions in Westmont’s JV with Soros Real Estate Partners in Japan, and building a stand-alone investment and management platform in Asia to source, close, and manage hotels for the company and its institutional capital partners.
Namid’s extensive credentials are enhanced by his experience as Vice President of Cimarron Group, acquiring and managing a portfolio of hotels in the USA. He began his career at Smith Barney Harris Upham & Co’s corporate finance department in New York.
Namid sits on the IHIF advisory board.
Imshan Jamal
Imshan is Managing Director and Co-Founder at EQ Hotels with over 28 years of experience in hospitality and real estate across the UK and Europe. Prior to founding EQ in 2011, he was Board Director and equity partner at Queensway Group, a family-owned conglomerate with hotel, restaurant and residential interests across the UK and Europe.
While at Queensway, he developed and operated hotels under franchise from brands including IHG and easyHotels, as well as creating ‘own brand’ independent hotels. As sole franchisee for the KFC and Pizza Hut brands in Austria and Slovakia, Imshan assembled and led the team building out 14 units across both territories. He also developed and managed a residential portfolio of over 100 units for sale or rent in London, Lisbon and Prague.
His first foray into entrepreneurship was building a profitable speciality retail coffee company which he sold in 2001. Imshan started his career qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand, going onto to become an M&A advisor in the Corporate Finance team at ING-Barings.
Hussein Sunderji
Hussein is a Managing Director at EQ Hotels with 13 years of experience in the hospitality industry.
Prior to joining EQ, Hussein was a co-founder and equity partner at Emirates Skyline Industrial Catering in the UAE, serving 8.5 million meals annually through government contracts. While there, he scaled the team to over 200 and built a company with over £10M in annual revenue before a successful exit.
Hussein is a former Mercer/Oliver Wyman management consultant who developed data driven solutions to build enduring capabilities across verticals including logistics, aviation, and customer service. He has a proven track record of working with partners to build the processes, capabilities, and mindsets necessary to sustain change.
Hussein also holds an honours degree in finance from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
Puneet Kanuga
Puneet is Chief Investment Officer at EQ Hotels, with over 20 years’ of global hospitality investment experience.
Prior to joining EQ, Puneet led hospitality investment and asset management teams at Kildare Partners and Queensgate Investments. During his time at Queensgate, Puneet led the growth of Generator Hostels, including the expansion of the platform into the US through the acquisition of Freehand Hotels. During COVID, he led the asset management of €1.5 billion operational real estate portfolio as well as the restructuring of €700 million of senior and mezzanine debt.
Puneet started his career at TRI Hospitality Consulting, where he carried out investment advisory assignments across Europe, North Africa, Central Asia and South America. Following that, he was a Director at HVS Hodges Ward Elliott, advising on the sale and refinancing of over £2 billion of hospitality real estate across Europe.