Atul Kumar Singh: “Finance Must Enable Performance, Not Slow It Down”

In this edition of CHIC Talks | Behind Performance, we feature Atul Kumar Singh, Cluster Director of Finance for Novotel Kinshasa and Ibis Styles Kinshasa.

With more than two decades of experience across hospitality finance, Atul brings a strong background in financial controls, budgeting, audits, cash flow management, owner reporting, compliance, and operational finance leadership.

His career includes experience with respected hospitality groups and platforms including Taj Hotels, Radisson Hotel Group, One&Only Resorts, The Leela, The Oberoi, and DAMAC Group. Across these environments, Atul has worked with large hotel operations, luxury assets, pre-opening and operating teams, area-level financial oversight, and complex owner-reporting requirements.

Recently recognised through a finance leadership award, Atul continues to focus on a principle that is central to hotel performance: finance should not operate as a back-office function only. It must support decision-making, strengthen controls, improve visibility, and help operations perform better.

For CHIC, this perspective is important. As the Kinshasa cluster continues to develop, finance leadership plays a critical role in protecting asset value, improving accountability, supporting operational discipline, and ensuring that performance is measured with clarity.

Snapshot

Name: Atul Kumar Singh

Role: Cluster Director of Finance – Novotel Kinshasa & Ibis Styles Kinshasa

Experience: 25+ years in hospitality finance and financial management

Highlights:

• Recent finance leadership recognition

• Cluster finance leadership across Novotel Kinshasa and Ibis Styles Kinshasa

• Experience across Taj Hotels, Radisson Hotel Group, One&Only Resorts, The Leela, The Oberoi, and DAMAC Group

• Former Director of Finance / Area Financial Controller experience with Taj Lands End and Area West portfolio

• Strong background in audits, controls, budgeting, cash flow, compliance, owner reporting, and team leadership

Focus Areas: Financial controls, operational finance, budgeting, cash flow management, audits, compliance, owner reporting, team development, purchasing controls, and performance visibility.

Q&A Feature

 Q1: After many years in hospitality finance, how do you define the role of finance in hotel performance?

Finance is no longer only about preparing reports or closing the month. In hospitality, finance must be closely connected to operations and performance.

A hotel is a live business. Every day there are decisions being made around revenue, purchasing, payroll, inventory, credit, cash flow, and guest experience. Finance must help the hotel understand the impact of those decisions.

For me, finance should create visibility. It should help the General Manager and department heads understand where the hotel is performing well, where there are risks, and where action is required. When finance is connected to operations, it becomes a performance partner.

Q2: Your proposed title says, “Finance Must Enable Performance, Not Slow It Down.” Why is that distinction important?

Because sometimes finance is misunderstood as a department that only controls, questions, or blocks decisions. That should not be the case.

Strong finance leadership must protect the business, but it must also enable the business. The objective is not to slow operations down. The objective is to make sure decisions are informed, disciplined, compliant, and aligned with performance.

Finance should help teams move faster with better information. When procedures are clear, approvals are structured, and numbers are reliable, operations can actually perform with more confidence.

Q3: What are the most important financial controls in a hotel environment?

Hospitality has many areas where controls are essential. Purchasing, receiving, stores, inventories, cash handling, credit, payroll, revenue audit, disbursements, contracts, licenses, and fixed assets all need discipline.

The key is consistency. Controls cannot be applied only at month-end or during audits. They must be part of daily operations.

Strong controls protect profitability, reduce leakages, and create accountability. They also give owners and management confidence that the hotel’s performance is being properly monitored and protected.

Q4: How do you balance control with operational flexibility?

The balance comes from understanding the business. Finance must know how operations work, and operations must understand why controls matter.

If finance only focuses on rules without understanding operations, it becomes rigid. If operations ignore controls, the hotel becomes exposed. The right balance is achieved when both sides work together with the same objective: better performance.

Good financial control is not about saying “no” to everything. It is about asking the right questions, validating the right information, and helping teams make decisions that are practical, responsible, and performance-driven.

Q5: What role does finance play in budgeting, forecasting, and performance reviews?

Budgeting gives the hotel direction. Forecasting gives the hotel visibility. Performance reviews help the hotel understand whether action is required.

Finance plays an important role in making these tools practical and useful. A budget should not be a document prepared once a year and then forgotten. It should guide decision-making throughout the year.

Forecasting is equally important because hotel performance changes quickly. When finance works with Sales, Revenue, Operations, and department heads, the hotel can anticipate pressure points, manage costs better, and respond before problems become larger.

Q6: How important is owner reporting and transparency in hotel finance?

Owner reporting is extremely important because owners need clear visibility on the performance of their asset.

The numbers must be accurate, but they must also be explained. It is not enough to show revenue, costs, or profit. Finance must help explain what is driving the results, what risks exist, what actions are being taken, and what support may be needed.

Good owner reporting builds trust. It shows that the hotel is being monitored properly and that management understands both the operational and financial picture.

Q7: You have worked across luxury hotels, large inventory hotels, and complex operating environments. What has that experience taught you?

Every hotel environment is different, but the fundamentals remain the same: discipline, integrity, teamwork, and strong systems.

Luxury hotels require attention to detail. Large inventory hotels require scale, process, and coordination. Complex operating environments require adaptability and strong judgment. Across all these environments, finance must remain steady and structured.

Experience across different brands and markets helps you understand that finance leadership is not only technical. It is also about people, communication, problem-solving, and helping teams perform under pressure.

Q8: What has been your approach to building and leading finance teams?

A strong finance team is built through training, clarity, accountability, and trust.

People need to understand their responsibilities, but they also need to understand why their work matters. Whether it is income audit, receiving, purchasing, stores, accounts payable, credit, payroll, or controls, each role contributes to the hotel’s performance.

My approach is to build teams that are disciplined, proactive, and connected to operations. Finance should not work in isolation. A good finance team must understand the hotel, support departments, respect deadlines, and protect the integrity of the numbers.

Q9: What does recent recognition mean to you as a finance leader?

Recognition is always encouraging, especially in a function that often works behind the scenes.

For me, it reflects the importance of consistency, discipline, integrity, and teamwork. Finance leadership is not about one individual. It depends on the systems we build, the teams we develop, and the collaboration we maintain with operations, management, and ownership.

Recognition also brings responsibility. It is a reminder to keep improving, keep supporting the business, and keep building stronger financial discipline across the hotel.

The CHIC Lens

At CHIC, finance leadership is viewed as a critical pillar of hotel performance. Strong hotels require reliable controls, clear reporting, disciplined budgeting, accountable teams, and timely visibility for ownership.

Atul Kumar Singh’s perspective reflects the role of finance as an enabler of performance — not only a reporting function. His experience across leading hospitality environments brings valuable discipline to the Kinshasa cluster, where financial clarity, operational support, and owner visibility are essential to long-term asset performance.

For CHIC, this is the purpose of Behind Performance: recognising the professionals whose systems, judgment, and discipline help hotels perform better behind the scenes.