A girl who was once told that her destiny is to simply get married is now not only leading a hospitality giant but is also playing an instrumental role in bringing key changes to the industry.
India-born Sima Pravin Patel is the CEO of Ridgemont Hospitality, a San Francisco Bay Area-based hospitality development and management company. In this role, she overlooks six hotels (two in partnership, four owned 100 percent), totaling 550 rooms and 150 employees.
Over the past four decades, she, along with her husband Pravin Patel, has grown Ridgemont Hospitality from a small family business into one of the fastest-growing hospitality companies in the Bay Area with a primary focus on ground-up hotel development, existing asset re-positioning, and hospitality management.
Alongside touching business milestones, Sima has also been instrumental in getting legislative changes in reference to tourism marketing funds to promote tourism not just in Oakland but at the state level. She serves on the board of Visit California and Californian Chamber of Commerce, working to solve issues affecting the hospitality industry. She is chief fiscal officer of Visit California while growing her company despite the challenging business climate wrought by the pandemic.
As immigrants India in the 1970s, Pravin and Sima began their career in a family hospitality business, helping to run and manage a small lodging establishment in Oakland.
Sima told Women of Color Power List 2025 how her life in India was completely opposite of what is she now.
“According to the plan, I should have never been a successful businesswoman,” she says.
Sima was born in Surat, a city in the western parts of India, and moved to the U.S. in 1979.
“Growing up in West India, my early years were spent fielding taunts of ‘dummy’ and being told I wasn’t beautiful because of my skin color. The plan for me was to be married and be the best daughter-in-law so my parents’ name doesn’t have a black dot. You make your parents proud by being a good cook and homemaker. I was married at age 17 and sent to the U.S. with those expectations.
“Despite my circumstances, I exceled once I landed in the U.S. With no college degree but an insatiable drive to succeed, my entrepreneurial spirit led me to the world of hospitality, which became my path forward.”
In 1985, Sima and Pravin developed their first lodging property. With help from her family, she and Pravin acquired the land on which they would build their first hotel, The Regency Inn, which went on to become the first jewel in the crown of their new company, Ridgemont Hospitality.
Today, the family-owned and -operated company runs Oakland’s Inn at Temescal, Holiday Inn Express, Hampton Inn & Suites, Hotel Vue in Mountain View, and a 110-room Hampton Inn in the heart of downtown Oakland, which was the first new hotel in downtown Oakland in years. The latest addition is Home2 Suites by Hilton Oakland Airport in Alameda, 30 minutes away from San Francisco.
“When at the age of 30, I had to jump into assist my husband in operating his first franchised hotel, I had to figure things out on my own. I didn’t have the resources to hire employees, so I had to learn every business function. Along the way, I amassed a tremendous breadth of experience in hotel operations and the related industry of travel and tourism.
“I discovered I have a gift for vision and strategy and, more importantly, finding a way to execute those big ideas. That led to me co-founding a hospitality development and management company and being courted by local and state organizations to head their boards, commissions, and committees.”
After 42 years in the industry, Sima is now putting her experience to its highest and best use, shifting from operations to CEO to contribute with vision and strategy.
She loves to share her “story of resilience and grit” to inspire others, particularly young women, to believe in themselves and achieve great things.
As a frequent speaker on women’s empowerment, Sima said she has seen “positive ripples that occur when you shine your light to help others find a better path.”
To see her dream come to life, Sima founded a nonprofit organization called Saaheli, an online community for women with the sole aim of empowering women to break social and cultural barriers to success.
“Saaheli builds that on a global scale and engages, educates, and encourages women to become independent and realize their true potential. As a result, we’ve created a powerful community of seasoned and aspiring female leaders who continue to support, empower, and inspire each other,” she shares.
Sima has kept close ties with industry and government leaders in her city, county, and state. Because of those relationships, she was instrumental in securing funding for the Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau through a voter referendum and assisted with forming a Tourism Improvement District in Oakland.
A true champion for tourism in Oakland, Sima advocates for the economic value of tourism to her city and state. She is the past chair of the Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors. Her other community commitments include membership in the Oakland Rotary Club and the Oakland Airport Area Business Association.
In 2004, she became the first Indian-American woman to chair a national or state lodging association in the country when she became chair of the California Lodging Industry Association. In this role, she represented more than 1,000 members.
More than a decade later, she became the first industry-elected chair of the nation’s biggest destination marketing organization, Visit California, representing more than 17,000 industry partners and overseeing a budget of $120 million in tourism marketing funding.
As an Indian-origin woman, a businessperson and a community leader, Sima continues to expand her reach as she gains momentum in her career as a hospitality professional.
“No one could dim my light, and now I’m determined to shine even brighter to help women and girls around the globe to access their untapped potential and reach the sky,” she says.
