Collinson, owner and operators of airport experiences programme Priority Pass, has promoted Saurabh Malhotra to Director Partnerships, South Asia and Indochina. Under the regional leadership of Suzanne Wong, Director of Commercial Partnerships for Asia Pacific, and working closely with Sumit Prakash, who’s expanded role was recently announced, Malhotra will continue to identify and strengthen new partnerships that deliver greater value to Collinson’s clients and their cardholders in key APAC markets, including India, Thailand and Vietnam.
The India market and wider South Asia region continues to be recognised for its importance by Collinson. Recent partnerships in the market include collaborations with homegrown brands including PineLabs and PoshVine; alongside winning the partnership with Visa India for the recently launched domestic travel experiences programme, Priority Pass Access India.
Commenting on the appointment, Sumit Prakash, Country Director, India and South Asia, Collinson said, “Recognising Saurabh as an extremely skilled individual who holds over 14 years of experience across strategic partnerships, business development, and product benefits management, we’re delighted to expand Saurabh’s role to enable him to further contribute to designing and implementing market and partnership-building initiatives. Following three impressive years with Collinson, most of which were during the pandemic, I have every confidence that Saurabh will continue orchestrating strategic and value-adding partnerships that provide ease of travel to our clients’ customers and additional value to our partners in this incredible region.”
Malhotra is an experienced payments professional with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services and payments industry. Skilled in business development, developing and managing strategic partnerships and customer relationships, Saurabh is a strong entrepreneurship professional with a Masters in Business Administration focused in Marketing from IBS.
“Being associated with a customer-first brand like Collinson has been a wonderful experience to date, and I feel elated to be awarded with this enhanced role. Collinson’s endeavour to better support our domestic markets – especially where travel has returned at an incredible pace – is exciting. I look forward to continuing to provide our clients with opportunities to better reward their customers each time they travel with ease and convenience through strong and inspiring partnerships”, said Malhotra.
Prior to this appointment, he was Collinson’s Partnership Director for India and South Asia for close to three years. Earlier in his career, Saurabh worked with industry giants such as PineLabs and American Express in roles encompassing business development, partnerships, and product benefits management.