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Chip Conley

Chip Conley (born October 31, 1960, in Orange, California) is an American hotelier, author, and speaker. Conley is the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, which he began in 1987 at age 26 and held the position of CEO for nearly 24 years. In 2010, after growing Joie de Vivre’s collection of boutique hotels to more than 35 properties in California, Conley sold his company to Geolo Capital and no longer has an operating role in the company. The last hotel concept he created for the company is The Epiphany in Palo Alto that opened in March 2014.In 2011, Conley and Joie de Vivre learned that Market Metrix awarded the company the #1 customer service award in the U.S. in the Upper Upscale hotel category for 2010, beating out Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Sheraton, Westin, Kimpton and Peninsula hotels. In 2012, Conley received one of the highest accolades in the U.S. hotel industry, the ISHC Pioneer Award, given to an industry leader annually with past winners including J.W. Marriott, Steve Wynn, and Starwood Hotels founder Barry Sternlicht.In October 2011, Joie de Vivre and Thompson Hotels merged, and the two brands now sit under the newly created parent company, Commune Hotels & Resorts. As of February 2014, Conley remains a private owner in more than a dozen hotel properties, although he sold the 200-room luxury Hotel Vitale in 2014.In 2010, Conley was invited to speak at the annual TED conference. His speech addressed creating a business model driven by our need for meaning as outlined by Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and as presented in his book Peak: How Great Companies Get their Mojo from Maslow. Conley’s other books on entrepreneurship include The Rebel Rules: Daring to Be Yourself in Business; Marketing that Matters: 10 Practices to Profit Your Business and Change the World; and Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness and Success.Conley has been honored by the San Francisco Business Times as the “Most Innovative CEO” in the Bay Area. He is the founder of San Francisco’s annual Celebrity Pool Toss fundraiser, which has raised more than $4 million for inner city families in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, where his first hotel, the Phoenix, is located.In 2013, Conley founded Fest300 and became Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy for Airbnb.