Meet Stuart Bowery

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Today I'm meeting Stuart Bowery, highly respected, a highly successful leader in luxury hospitality, and it's a privilege and an honor for me to sit with such an icon and a true legend, really, of the hospitality industry and an overall great guy. Thank you, Stuart.

Thank you. I don't know what to say about legend and icon. Maybe I'm old, but thank you very much. It really is a pleasure and a privilege to have some time with you today Axel.

Fantastic. I'm just passing on other words that we heard over the last few years, really, so thank you. Let's start. So, over the last 30 years, a really distinguished career within Marriott and leading hotels, especially here in the capital. I'm just interested; what you love most about the city and about the hospitality you can find here.

What I would say is I feel immensely privileged to be associated with the industry. I've been very much a homebird, worked throughout the UK in the last 25 years, plus in London, and I've been fortunate to work in some pretty I would call iconic hotels, whether it be here at Grosvenor House and prior to Grove now. So at London County Hall overlooking Westminster and London being such rich in history, culture, activities, whether it be from the political world to sport, entertainment, sciences, everything is happening. And it's been really a fantastic hub for the world to descend upon. And with that has brought a huge amount of richness and reward in the job that I do with the people I've been fortunate to work with.

Fantastic. Thank you. You really ooze your passion about what you do day in, day out. And you mentioned the JW Governor House as one of the flagships for Marriott and an iconic building and hotel, not only in London, but in the world. So how is it to be on the helm for such an iconic property? Well, when I arrived here in 2011, I sort of gasped as I approached the hotel my first day. And when you've got London's largest luxury hotel, the first hotel on Park Lane, it opened its doors in 1929. And to be given the keys to such a grand arm was a huge amount of responsibility that I was going to embark upon. So I'm conscious of there's a huge amount of history, but there's also a commercial responsibility that we need to be relevant. So it's trying to keep the best of the past, but looking forward and protecting our heritage, our culture, and inspiring the team to really excite the guests who come to stay here.