It certainly makes a lot of sense that Jonathan Tisch made Vanity Fair’s 2015 International Best-Dressed List. Whether clothed in Hermès for a shareholders’ meeting at Loews Corp. or trotting off in his Hogan sneakers at the crack of dawn to spin at SoulCycle, the svelte executive is considered sartorially splendid by most who know him.
And, while the glossy mag detailed some of his favorite garments and designers, it missed one of Tisch’s most obvious passions: He likes to wear a lot of hats.
Tisch’s chapeaux in this case are the figurative kind. Overlooked, perhaps, in the balloting for best-dressed, they are at the core of why he will be honored in Atlanta later this month with the seventh Hunter Conference Award for Excellence and Inspiration. The award was created to celebrate a lodging industry player who has exemplified high standards in leadership, citizenship and innovation and who has been an inspiration to the industry.
Tisch’s current standard headgear is his role as chairman of Loews Hotels & Resorts, a chain of 24 eclectic properties that is a subsidiary of publicly traded Loews Corp., where he is a member of the office of the president, and co-chairman of the board, a role he shares with his cousin, Andrew Tisch, chairman of the executive committee of Loews. Andrew’s brother, James, is president/CEO of the corporation, which also umbrellas subsidiaries Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. (oil drilling), CNA Financial Corp. (insurance) and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, LP (natural gas pipelines).
If the C-suites seem crowded with Tischs it’s not by happenstance. The cousins involved have been traveling life’s road together almost as one family since they were kids, accompanied by a gaggle of siblings (who remain outside the business), all led by two pairs of parents who created success not only for themselves but instilled in their children what to do with it.
A champion for the industry
“Jon Tisch is a selfless champion for the lodging industry,” said Kirk Kinsell, president/CEO of Loews Hotels & Resorts. “He has spent enormous amounts of time lobbying political leaders, speaking on key topics and working tirelessly to bring attention and awareness to important issues.”
An advocate’s hat is just one of many in Tisch’s closet of commitments. Well-known in the lodging industry for creating gateways to change, the executive has been a “disrupter” of the status quo long before the term was coined and clichéd.
More than a quarter-century ago, Tisch initiated Loews Hotels’ Good Neighbor Policy, a bold move to be a positive force within the communities it serves while taking a global view in safeguarding the planet and its resources. Similarly, 20 years ago, in an effort to keep the momentum created by the decade’s White House Conference on Travel and Tourism, Tisch founded and chaired the Travel Business Roundtable (TBR) to create a unified industry voice regarding government policies that would be heard in Washington. TBR later merged with the Travel Industry Association in 2009 to form the current U.S. Travel Association (USTA), of which Tisch is chairman emeritus.
Roger Dow, president/CEO of USTA, recalled one of Tisch’s more interesting DC moments. “[It was] watching Jon respectfully educating newly elected President Obama on the important role meetings and conventions play in the nation’s economy, following the president’s statement that: ‘You can’t take a trip to Las Vegas or go to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime…’”
Tisch also carved out time to serve as chairman of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA). Katherine Lugar, AH&LA’s president/CEO, said, “Jon’s unprecedented passion, engagement and commitment to the industry know no bounds. His foresight and vision paved the way for this industry to fully appreciate the value of tailored partnerships with communities and invested stakeholders, grassroots participation and, most importantly, advocacy efforts at every level of government. Always focused on empowering the hospitality industry, from his time as chair of AH&LA to his launch of the predecessor of the reputable U.S. Travel Association, Jon has focused on creating a united front with the sole mission to strengthen and promote travel and tourism at home and abroad. Because of Jon’s leadership, there’s no question the industry is stronger and more united.”
“What I’m most proud of is we have raised the conversation about what our industry means to this country and, certainly, what our industry means to the world, inasmuch as travel and tourism is the number-one industry in the world,” said Tisch.
A true New Yorker, the hotelier for six years also chaired the city’s marketing arm, NYC & Company and, following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, served as chairman of New York Rising, which sought to revive tourism and the economy in the Big Apple. He worked to do the same on the national level.
In his spare time, he’s managed to author three industry-relevant best-sellers; interview more than 50 top CEOs for his television series Beyond the Boardroom; and conduct live one-on-one interviews two to three times a year at Manhattan’s 92nd St. Y with movers and shakers such as Alicia Keyes, Neil Patrick Harris and Sarah Jessica Parker (former New York Giant and talk show host Michael Strahan is next on April 24).
And, for the 22nd time, Tisch again will chair this year’s New York University International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference in June. The session-rich conference, whose patron and sponsor organizations help provide student scholarships and support academic initiatives of the NYU School of Professional Studies Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism, also places many of the industry’s leading lights in sharp focus.
A regular conference participant is Chris Nassetta, president/CEO, Hilton Worldwide, who told Hotel Business, “Jon Tisch has been an iconic leader in the hospitality industry for decades, and a strong advocate of our industry’s public policy issues. He has built a very successful business, and I’ve admired his long-standing philanthropic and community involvement over the years, particularly in creating innovative programs to engage youth in our industry.”
Focusing on his day job
With all of this playing out, Tisch has not lost sight of his day job in advancing Loews as a strong competitor for market share. If anything, the brand has been eyed of late by industry observers as invigorated and growing, a sentiment not off the mark.
Last year, Tisch brought in Kinsell, a veteran of IHG, to help lead Loews and just recently added Oliver Bonke, also of IHG, to fill the newly created position of chief commercial officer.
Within the same time frame, the company launched a soft brand, The OE Collection. The management-based platform is geared toward independent upper-upscale and lifestyle properties, such as its first property, Bisha Hotel and Residences in Toronto. It also debuted Loews Regency, a luxury brand that, following a reflag, will use the former Mandarin Oriental San Francisco as its initial property.
While a slow day for Tisch would likely make other peoples’ hair go on fire, the executive noted he’s well used to multitasking professionally and personally, indicating it’s almost a hallmark of being a Tisch.
When Tisch first opened his eyes in Atlantic City, NJ, there were no casino hotels around. Nonetheless, he was lucky indeed. Ready to dote on him were his mother, Joan, and his father, Preston Robert “Bob” Tisch, as well as his uncle and aunt, Laurence and Wilma Tisch.
The Tisch brothers, who would go on to be billionaires and always preferred you call them Bob and Larry, were old-school Brooklynites who had tandemed to drive themselves and their families away from a hardscrabble life. That path ultimately led them to Lakewood, NJ.
“Even prior to us being in the hotel business in Atlantic City, my father and uncle, mother and aunt and my grandparents [Sayde and Al] started in the summer camp business. That led them to leasing a hotel that was called Laurel in the Pines,” said Tisch.
While images of quaint cottages in the woods might come to mind, the property was actually a 135-room, mansion-style brick hotel originally built in the 1800s to attract the posh and privileged. The historic structure was destroyed in 1967 by a massive fire.
Long before that, though, the Tischs had decided to move to Atlantic City, where they began in earnest to lay a foundation for the generations now ensconced in the corporate headquarters at 61st St. and Madison Ave. on Manhattan’s East Side.
“My father and uncle had five hotels in the early ’50s. The most famous of their hotels was the Traymore Hotel. It was 600 rooms right on the boardwalk on the ocean in Atlantic City,” said Tisch.
Though noted for its architecture, the building was later imploded and demolished in 1972 in a “progressive” development push.
Fortunately, Tisch can still conjure memories of the hotel and one day in particular, which reflects him today.
When he was five years old and apparently understanding the value
of making good connections, Tisch
put on his greeter hat to welcome then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the Traymore. He was instructed to salute the former World War II five-star general and give him a “hearty” handshake. “My memory is I did
them both at the same time,” grinned the executive.
Maybe it’s his innate nature to do two things—or three or four—at once; he is, after all, to the “manner” born.
Surrounded by supportive parents and relatives—entrepreneurial strivers all—Tisch said he and his siblings, Steve, a film and television producer and chairman/EVP of the New York Giants, the NFL team co-owned by his family, and Laurie, president of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, an opportunity foundation, all had a chance to observe the hotel industry at a very early age.
“We all would gravitate to various jobs in the hotels,” he said. “At an early age, I had worked every position possible, whether it was housekeeping or in the bakery—that was a particularly good one when I was a kid.”
While the Hunter honoree is the only one who stuck with lodging, he noted the multi-hat wearing he’s known for runs in the family. “My brother, Steve, is the only person on the planet—and this is a fact—to have won an Academy Award (Forrest Gump) and a Super Bowl trophy (two),” crowed Tisch.
“Whether it’s my siblings or my cousins, we were always encouraged to follow the various interests in our lives and there never was any pressure to work at Loews. Certainly, it was an option for us and, as it turned out, it became a role that my cousins and I have now done for in excess of three decades,” said Tisch.
While he has become synonymous with Loews Hotels & Resorts and is the public face of the brand, Tisch was not handed the key to the executive washroom when he started at the company. He climbed several rungs up the corporate ladder, beginning as a sales rep making cold calls before serving as VP, EVP, president and CEO. While he took guidance from his father and uncle, Tisch also considered former Loews Hotels President Robert Hausman a mentor.
“Bob Hausman really taught me the business side of the hotel industry because he was a numbers guy. I was able to learn a lot from him in terms of deal-making, in terms of reading a P&L, in terms of understanding operating ratios, operating margins… It really allowed me to understand the industry in a more-intimate manner that helped form the way—all these years later—we still run the company today,” said Tisch.
The first hotel deal Tisch ever built was the Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, AZ, in 1984. Originally a management contract, Loews purchased the property a little over a year ago. “We just completed a major renovation at that hotel, so it’s very gratifying to know the first property that I was ever involved in from scratch is still part of our portfolio,” said Tisch.
Pursuing the Loews life was not always a given, however, especially for the newly minted Tufts University grad Tisch was in 1976. Perhaps taking a cue from his older brother, who had already headed to the West Coast and Hollywood, Tisch spent the next three years as a cinematographer/producer at WBZ-TV in Boston.
“I was producing TV shows, editing. I was filming, doing sports, public affairs and I did a pre-game New England Patriots football show. And, some kids’ shows. That was a moment that I experimented with being out of the hotel business, but then came back to Loews Hotels in January of 1980,” said Tisch.
It really could have gone either way for the young executive, given what his father and uncle had done over the years. In 1957, the duo acquired the Morris Lapidus-designed Americana of Bal Harbour (subsequently the Sheraton of Bal Harbour and currently a St. Regis). In 1959, the brothers acquired the controlling interest in Loews Theaters, considered one of the largest movie-house chains at the time.
“I always had one eye on the hotel industry and one eye on the entertainment industry,” said Tisch.
Not so the brothers, who saw many of the theater sites as ideal locations for hotels, and did tear downs of the cinemas. For example, Tisch pointed to Manhattan’s Loews Lexington Theater, which was torn down to become the Summit Hotel in 1963.
“It was originally Tisch Hotels and Loews Theaters,” said the chairman. “Then, Loews Theaters bought Tisch Hotels, so it was Loews Theaters and Hotels. When they started adding subsidiaries that were not in theaters or hotels, that’s when it became Loews Corp.,” said Tisch.
The executive feels his venture into television has served him well in his role at Loews’ helm, being both the “keeper” and the “soul” of the brand.
“No one’s being doing it more than me; nobody knows more history of how we bought hotels, when we sold hotels. Also, I’m extremely involved in the look of our properties. I pick every fabric, every piece of carpet, every lamp, every piece of furniture I approve. Those years in TV, because I was behind the camera and an editor, helped train my eye,” said Tisch, who likens the hotel business to being another form of the entertainment industry.
“Instead of having a set like you would have for a movie, we have lobbies; we have meeting space; we have guestrooms. And, all of the images have to come together to ensure that the product that we’re putting out there is what the guest wants,” he said.
Historian hat? Check. Designer hat? Check. Director hat? Check.
Tisch is well known in society circles, often snapped by photographers alongside his entrepreneur wife, Lizzie (also an alum of VF’s Best-Dressed List), at a gala or charity benefit. (The couple a few years ago donated $10 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute to inaugurate a gallery in their names.)
But, Tisch is comfortable with celebrities, having been up close to many as a youngster.
For example, in 1965, the Tischs opened the 2,220-room Americana Hotel on Seventh Ave. (now the Sheraton New York.) “We were always coming into the city, and there was a nightclub at the Americana called The Royal Box. I was about 12, so at a very early age I got to meet Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte, Judy Garland, all because they were performing at the nightclub,” he said.
As might be expected, as a youngster Tisch traveled quite a bit. Having relocated to Scarsdale, NY, the family would travel to their Americana Bal Harbour property, and Tisch can remember taking an overnight train from Penn Station to Miami.
“We were always going to one of our hotels,” said the executive, recalling trips to the Bahamas and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
“Whenever they would open a hotel, we would go as kids and we would pretty much go en masse. It would always be a very exciting time for us,” said Tisch.
One trip proved particularly so. “I started working in hotels when I was four or five years old and, I remember, at the Americana Bal Harbour they had a nightclub. And, in those days, they had topless dancers. I would somehow at night find myself backstage at the nightclub with the topless dancers as a very naïve nine-year-old,” he said.
The first time Tisch actually got paid for working in the family hotels was when he was 16 and behind the front desk of the NYC Americana for the summer. “In those days we were probably getting $25 a night for a room and I used my middle name, which is Mark, as my last name on my name badge so the guests wouldn’t know I was connected to the family that controlled the hotel. Occasionally, we would get people that would come up and try to show you how smart they were or use their influence to get an upgrade or get a room if we were sold out,” he said, recalling one such guest demanding a room because he know all three Tisch brothers: Preston, Robert and Larry.
“I learned a lot about people through the early years I’d be working in these various jobs,” said Tisch.
A student at The Gunnery in Connecticut, Tisch as a teen did what he does today: take on any number of projects. At 17, he was working with now-legendary concert promoter Ron Delsener to put on concerts in Central Park and Louis Armstrong Stadium, now a venue for tennis’ U.S. Open. In his senior year at Tufts, where he was part of the school’s concert board, he put on a Stevie Wonder concert at Boston Garden in October 1975, “and that was quite an experience,” said Tisch.
But, perhaps not quite as interesting as his next musical encounter. In April 1976, Tufts’ concert board booked a young New York musician for two shows in its Cohen Auditorium, which has 620 seats. “In between the first show and the second show, I had the job of telling him there’d be no second show because we hadn’t sold enough tickets. That performer was Billy Joel,” said Tisch, who now jokes about it with The Piano Man when they meet.
Obviously, time can change a lot of things, and Tisch sees the business of hotels as changed “dramatically” over the past 25 years.
“You now have an industry that is global in nature, that is dominated by brands that tend to be public companies, whether they be in the U.S., Europe or Hong Kong. Or they have access to capital through sovereign wealth funds, through private equity, through wealthy individuals and families. And, there is a tremendous amount of capital chasing the hotel industry,” said the executive. “What hasn’t changed since the first day that somebody checked into a hotel and handed over some type of currency to have a roof over their head for one night is the hotel business. That’s based on creating an environment where people feel safe and secure because they’re leaving their homes and entrusting you with their desire to have a successful business trip, to go with their spouse, their partner, to be with their family, to be with their friends. It is our job, and it has been the job of people in the industry from minute one, to not only meet expectations, but to exceed expectations. That’s how you get people to return,” said Tisch. “I was able to learn these lessons at a very, very early age.”
Not a bad takeaway to hang your hat on.