Neil Jacobs is back in the corner office — and this time, he’s starting with some of London’s most storied addresses already in the fold.
Constellation Hotels Holding this week named the former Six Senses CEO the chief executive of a new luxury hospitality management business that will build a global brand around three London icons: The Connaught in Mayfair, The Emory in Belgravia, and The Berkeley in Knightsbridge.
The as-yet-unnamed collection will also fold in a Saint-Germain hotel under development in Paris, a project in Marrakech, and Hackwood Park, an English country estate. Each hotel will keep its existing name and identity within the collection, which Constellation said it will unveil later this year.
The appointment is the other shoe dropping after this summer’s breakup of one of luxury hospitality’s most-watched partnerships. Constellation and Regis Maybourne last month announced they had unwound their joint ownership of Maybourne, the ultra-luxury operator behind Claridge’s. Under that agreement, Regis Maybourne took sole ownership of the Maybourne brand along with Claridge’s, The Maybourne Riviera, and The Maybourne Beverly Hills, while Constellation kept The Connaught, The Emory, and The Berkeley, plus the Paris and Marrakech pipeline.
Maybourne continues to manage the London trio for an agreed period, but the endgame is now clear: Jacobs’ new operating company will assume management of those hotels once the current arrangements conclude, effectively standing up a new competitor at the very top of the market. Constellation — the Qatar-backed investment vehicle whose CEO, Gianluca Muzzi, returned from a co-CEO role at Maybourne to lead the company — remains the owner and long-term steward of the properties, with responsibility for investment and portfolio strategy.
“We’re in the rare position of forming a new international collection with The Connaught, The Berkeley and The Emory as its foundations. Each has a distinct identity and loyal following. Our vision is to build from that strength and create something worthy of what comes next,” Jacobs said in a statement. “That starting point gives us the freedom to rethink what exceptional hotel environments can be. Beyond impeccable rooms and service, our focus will be on places with an energy you can feel as soon as you walk in. As hospitality and residential communities increasingly overlap, there is an opportunity to create a richer and more connected way of experiencing them.”
Dare we say that sounded a lot like Jacobs signaling the new collection will play in the branded residences arena — one of the fastest-growing corners of luxury hospitality? The new brand’s remit explicitly covers hotels, resorts, and residences.
If anyone has the résumé to build a luxury brand from a standing start, it’s Jacobs. During his roughly 13-year run at Six Senses, he took the company from a niche wellness resort player of fewer than 10 properties to a global brand with 27 hotels open and a pipeline of more than 30 — along the way selling it to IHG Hotels & Resorts in 2019. Before Six Senses, he held senior roles at Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts and Starwood Capital Group, and he more recently founded the creative advisory collective Wild Origins.
“Constellation’s ambition is to be a thoughtful, long-term steward of our exceptional portfolio of hotels. Establishing our own hospitality management business is an important step in that strategy, giving us the capability to invest in the properties themselves, as well as in the brand, people and operating platform that will support their enduring success,” Muzzi said in a statement.
Constellation said the management transition will be “carefully managed” to protect service levels. The bigger reveal — the collection’s name — lands later this year.
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