Patrick Iserlohe
general manager, Grand Hyatt Muscat

Iserlohe previously worked as resident manager for the Hyatt Hotels Baku, Azerbaijan (Regency, Park and International Centre). Prior to this, he held several senior food and beverage related positions in Hyatt hotels including Park Hyatt Johannesburg, Hyatt Regency Birmingham and Hyatt Regency Mainz, where he started his career with the group in 1999. He is also a qualified chef. He plans to spend some time assessing the current situation of the hotel before developing his own strategy aligned to Hyatt hotels' goals and visions for lifestyle and luxury properties like Grand Hyatt Muscat.

Alain Briere
area director of marketing-Oman

Briere is responsible for the sales and marketing operations of the entire resort comprising three hotels: Al Waha, Al Bandar and Al Husn, 19 food and beverage outlets, the Chi Spa, marina, diving centre and Omani Heritage Village. He has over 30 years of experience in sales and marketing. He was most recently area director of sales and marketing of Pudong Shangri-La in Shanghai, also overseeing the Shangri-La hotels in Hangzhou and Shenzhen. Briere held senior mana-gement positions with several luxury hotel groups.

Burkhard Wolter
executive asst manager, Al Husn

Wolter is responsible for the entire operation of Al Husn, including 180 deluxe rooms and suites, the private gymnasium, private beach, infinity pool and library. He brings to this position more than ten years of hotel management experience.

Kate Godfrey
senior consultant, Oxford Publishing Group

Oxford Business Group (OBG) the UK-based publishing, research and consultancy service, which publishes Emerging Oman has recently appointed Godfrey to its consultancy department. Her work will include providing consultative analysis for some of the biggest names in the region and contributing to the research specialist's stable of business intelligence publications. Godfrey, the former head of the research department of Colliers International in the Middle East, has extensive experience in the Gulf, including Oman.

Atul Kanwar
chief finance officer, Al Sulaimi Group

Having spent 21 years with the OHI group, Oman is as good as home for this finance professional. Starting as the deputy chief accountant, finance, in OHI, he rose to become the general manager, finance, of the group. Kanwar started his career with Richardson Hindustan (now Procter & Gamble) in Mumbai, India. A chartered accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, he is looking at implementing a holding company's structure at the Al Sulaimi group.

Mahmood Hashem al Kooheji
deputy chairman, board of directors, Gulf Air

Kooheji, the deputy chief executive officer of Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company, has been appointed as the new deputy chairman of the Gulf Air board of directors, which consists of eight members split equally between Oman and the Kingdom of Bahrain.