Hasu Shah
Hasu Shah is the Chair of the Hersha Hospitality Trust. He retired as the company's CEO in 2005, and the company is currently run by his sons, Jay and Neil Shah. The company is named after his wife, Hersha.
In the 1960s, he set out to be a chemical engineer, but was unable to get accepted to a university in India, and turned to America. After graduating, he decided to work for 10 years in America in order to build up money to buy a smaller pharmaceutical company in India. His dream was to manufacture inexpensive drugs for the poor.
He collected $52,000 in profit from buying and selling houses over those years, and returned to India to buy the company. When the owners would not sell, he decided to come back to America and find another investment, buying his first hotel in 1984.
In 30 years, he has developed, managed, or owned over 100 hotels across the United States. Today, Hersha has 52 hotels with over 8,000 rooms. Hersha is one of the most recognized names in the hospitality industry.