Amar Lalvani — the 49-year-old President and Creative Director for Hyatt, and the man who turned Standard hotels into a huge global brand — credits his career to taking risks and embracing uncertainty.
In his early 20s, a business trip to Thailand turned into a multi-year stint in Asia. He was initially reluctant to work abroad for such a long period, but the move had a big payoff. Later in his career, he had a messy split with a major hotel group and then agreed to come back — provided he could buy the company.
“The thing is to be bold, to be brave, to take risks to figure it out,” he said of such critical junctures.
Lalvani began his career under real estate magnate Barry Sternlicht at Starwood Capital Group, the multi-billion real estate investment firm focused on hotels.
In 1998, he was 24-years-old and ten days into a business trip in Asia when one of Starwood’s partners called him and said he needed to stay in Thailand — indefinitely — to figure out if Starwood should invest in the region, which was in the midst of a financial crisis.
He stayed abroad for roughly two years, acting as Starwood’s only person on-the-ground and meeting people who would prove to be key investors for future projects.
He managed various existing Starwood properties and laid the groundwork with the Thai government that would help Starwood launch key properties, including Le Méridien and St. Regis, in the next decade.
“Those were formative years for me to figure out what I was doing and… set the stage for my career,” he told NY Next.
After returning from Thailand in 2000, he got an MBA from Harvard and worked in real estate development at Blackstone and then at Starwood’s W Hotels.
In 2010, while working with W, he partnered with hotelier André Balazs to expand his hospitality empire, which at the time included The Mercer in Manhattan, Chiltern Firehouse in London, Sunset Beach in The Hamptons, the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood and Standard hotels in WeHo, downtown Los Angeles, Miami and NY’s Meatpacking District.
But by 2012, Lavlani had grown tired of running the operations and finances of the company while Balazs focused on the creative side of the business. He had his own vision he wanted to execute and quit.
The split was messy but short-lived.
“About six months later, [Balazs] asked me to have dinner with him… and said, do you want to come back on board and run the company?” Lalvani said.
He agreed to return but only if Balazs agreed to “do things differently” or let Lalvani buy the company from him.
Balazs opted for the latter.
“By force of will, by personality, by charisma, by age … he was going to always be the boss unless I was able to get the funds to buy the company,” Lalvani said. “So I did.”
(Information about how much Lalvani raised and spent on the deal has not been publicly disclosed, but in 2013 he became the majority shareholder of the Standard.)
While Lalvani said it was a “challenge” to take over a brand from its beloved founder — and take on a more creative role than ever before — he believes that was the only way he was able to grow the business.
In years since, he’s opened ten more Standard hotels, including properties in Singapore and the Maldives. Dozens more are in the pipeline.
In 2014, Lalvani worked to expand Standard’s footprint by investing in the smaller Bunkhouse Hotel Group, which operates a handful of properties in Texas, California, and Mexico City.
In the years since, Lalvani has taken a risk developing what he refers to as “secondary cities” — smaller markets like Louisville, Kentucky and Lisbon, Portugal, that are often overlooked by major hotel chains but are becoming increasingly popular as low-key tourist destinations.
“I saw this trend,” he said.
This past October, Hyatt, which owns 24 hotel brands, from Andaz to Dream, purchased all the brands under Lavlani’s management — including the Bunkhouse and The Standard — for $355 million.
As part of the deal, Lavlani is staying on as President and Creative Director for all Hyatt brands and will continue to oversee the brands he has already been managing.
As for what’s next, Lalvani said he’s embracing the present — namely, celebrating the launch of his new Soho hotel The Manner, a stylish passion project that eschews traditional amenities like televisions in every room and wall art.
“It’s very simple,” he said. “I want people to love our hotels.”
This story is part of NYNext, a new editorial series that highlights New York City innovation across industries, as well as the personalities leading the way.