Ross Anderson
An entrepreneurial business builder with an established record of accelerating strategy implementation and enhancing organizational performance. Ross began his professional career at the age of fifteen when he completed a classical food and beverage apprenticeship at the Sheraton Brussels Hotel. He went on to attend The School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University and followed that with a successful career working for leading brands including Marriott, Westin, Registry, and Sheraton.
Ross left hotel operations to co-develop a data-based hotel marketing information and reservations system, which was sold to Citicorp’s information business, where he worked on developing information-based business strategies across the travel, financial services, and CPG sectors to drive competitive business advantage. Leaving Citicorp, Ross co-founded a boutique management consultancy focused on information-driven business transformation. As a consultant, he managed a variety of engagements from launching boutique hotels such as the Marlin Hotel in South Beach for music entrepreneur Chris Blackwell to advising GE’s Pension Trust and other leading hotel owners on asset performance to exploring the opportunity to spin out Holiday Inn’s worldwide global information technology infrastructure as a stand-alone reservation services business serving the hotel industry.
Ross subsequently joined a venture development firm where he successfully helped launch (5) start-up companies totaling more than $600MM in venture investments in the entertainment, new media, and wellness/health sectors. He was a co-founder and the CMO of a global roll-up of single-focus health and wellness brands whose owners included Anthony Robbins, the world’s leading authority on the psychology of peak performance.
Ross is the founding partner of Macallan Advisors (www.macallanadvisors.com) where he consults with growth businesses as well as pursues new entrepreneurial ventures predominantly in the Hospitality sector. The firm’s latest project is a collaboration on the development of a new brand of luxury surfing resorts. He is also a Partner with Doublespace, a New York City-based integrated brand creative agency (www.doublespace.com).
Bernie Murphy
A world-class hospitality executive with an industry-specific skill set portfolio rarely matched in the hotel space. Bernie brings an experiential combination of strategic planning, hotel operations, hotel real estate investment banking, third-party hotel management, and acquisitions across a successful career spanning over four decades.
He began his hotel career with Guest Quarters Suite Hotels/DoubleTree Hotels, rising from hotel General Manager to Vice President of Real Estate, assisting General Electric Pension Trust in a successful IPO of DoubleTree in 1994.
Bernie then joined The Plasencia Group, a boutique hotel investment banking firm, as SVP.
During his more than twelve-year tenure at Plasencia, he successfully completed over $2.75 Billion in hotel transactions and advisory assignments.
He subsequently joined Davidson Hotels & Resorts as SVP of Business Development, charged with growing the fee-based third-party management platform for the company. During his tenure, Davidson’s managed hotel portfolio more than doubled and company revenues grew from roughly $480 million to $1.0 Billion.
In 2021, Bernie founded Cloverleaf-Venture to provide much-needed post-pandemic advisory services to hospitality clients. Having known and worked with Ross Anderson for some 30 years, he also joined Macallan Advisors to collaborate on new venture development and management opportunities in the hospitality sector. He is a graduate of The University of Virginia where he earned a BA in Economics and the University of Maryland where he earned an MBA.
bmurphy@cloverleaf-venture.com
Kevin M. Bell
Often called the working architect by his clients, Kevin’s robust portfolio of hands-on experience across architectural design, construction management, and furniture design allows him to bring a distinct pragmatism to his projects. Designing and constructing his first home at age twelve in his hometown of Lexington, VA., today Kevin operates at the forefront of the design and building trades in both the public and private sectors.
He is a genuine collaborator and innovator, striving to break the status quo and challenge conventional industry notions to provide his clients with exceptional value. At heart a modernist, he sees his architectural mission as being about more than promoting his own “signature” design aesthetic. Kevin’s pathway to a client’s desired design outcome is achieved by helping them to discover what their own design mark or vestige is going to be for their project – integrating inputs such as a site’s pedigree with their vision, needs, and design sensibilities.
His holistic design approach and sustainable sensibilities have always put him ahead of industry fads. Fluid in both traditional hand-drafting, the latest computer-aided design, and 3D visualization, Kevin integrates the best of traditional architectural practices with emerging disciplines including computer-controlled fabrication methods. In recent years he has developed a strong expertise in the use of sustainable and prefab materials to shorten development cycles, reduce costs and improve environmental suitability.
Kevin is the founder and senior architect for Vestige Design Studio ["VDS"], managing projects nationally from studios in NYC, the Hamptons, and Charlottesville (www.vestigeds.com). Since founding VDS, Kevin has worked on residential, marine, hospitality, commercial, and pro bono projects. He has collaborated with Shawmut Design + Construction, Woods Bagot, and several other leading design agencies and consultants. He led the design and project management teams for a redesign of the iconic Santa Anita Racetrack in Los Angeles, a project encompassing 3000 trade and craftspeople. He also contributed to the design of the Gramercy Park Hotel in NYC when it was relaunched by Ian Schrager, and early in his career worked internationally on designing Telefonica’s headquarters in Madrid. Kevin joined Macallan Advisors to collaborate on new venture development and management opportunities in the hospitality sector.