Chip Conley

Author and Joie de Vivre Founder 

No hotel executive in the world has overseen the development and creation of more boutique hotels than Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre, America's second largest boutique hotelier. At the age of 26 with no industry experience, Chip transformed a seedy 1950's "no-tell motel" into the world-renowned Phoenix Hotel, a legendary rock 'n roll hotel that catered to the likes of David Bowie, Linda Ronstadt and Nirvana. Inspired by the French expression for "joy of life," Chip created Joie de Vivre with the intention of developing what USA Today called "the most delightfully schizophrenic collection of hotels in America." During his time as CEO, Joie de Vivre grew to nearly 40 award-winning hotels with over 3,000 employees and annual revenues approaching $250 million.

Also a best-selling author, Chip shares his unique prescription for success in, PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow. Based on noted psychologist Abraham Maslow's iconic Hierarchy of Needs theory, PEAK illustrates how a business's three key stakeholders - Employees, Customers and Investors - are ultimately motivated by peak experiences that address their higher, unspoken needs, and he demonstrates how to create such experiences using real-world examples from his own company and other peak-performing organizations. Chip credits this theory for helping Joie de Vivre triple its annual revenues between 2001 and 2008.

Chip's latest book is the New York Times bestseller, EMOTIONAL EQUATIONS: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success. A leading practitioner of emotional intelligence in the workplace, Chip takes us from emotional intelligence to emotional fluency in this book that Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh calls, "An invaluable operating manual for life." Chip's previous books include The Rebel Rules: Daring to be Yourself in Business (with a foreword by Sir Richard Branson) and Marketing That Matters: 10 Practices to Profit Your Business and Change the World, co-authored with Eric Friedenwald-Fishman. Chip has presented his theories at the intersection of business and psychology to audiences around the world and was a featured speaker at the prestigious TED conference in 2010.

Chip has been honored with the top awards in hospitality including the 2012 Pioneer Award, the highest accolade in the industry. The San Francisco Business Times named him the Most Innovative CEO among business leaders across all industries - and Joie de Vivre the 2^nd Best Place to Work - in the entire San Francisco/Silicon Valley region. Chip has been on the Board of San Francisco's Glide Memorial Church and is currently on the Board of the Esalen Institute, Burning Man, and Youth Speaks and he is the founder/producer of ArtPadSF. He received his BA and MBA from Stanford University, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Psychology from Saybrook University where he is the 2012 Scholar-Practitioner in residence.