Jumeirah Group, the Dubai-based luxury hospitality company and a member of Dubai Holding, has appointed Stephan Schüpbach as Vice President Operations.
In his new role, he will be responsible for overseeing the performance of Jumeirah’s owned hotels in Dubai, managed hotels in Asia Pacific, the global wellness brand Talise and leading the pre-opening preparations for Jumeirah’s next phase of expansion in Asia. He will report to Jumeirah Group CEO Operations Nicholas Clayton.
Since 2010 Stephan Schüpbach has been General Manager of Jumeirah Zabeel Saray, the Ottoman inspired resort on Palm Jumeirah. He led the pre-opening team to a successful hotel launch in March 2011 and by 2012 the property was outperforming its competitive set and consistently hitting highs in its customer satisfaction ratings.
During his tenure at Jumeirah Zabeel Saray, the property received over 50 awards which recognised the hotel, spa, restaurants, TripAdvisor performance, colleagues and sustainability. In addition, the hotel recently won the Dubai Quality Award and Stephan Schüpbach received the ‘Swiss Star Abroad Award’ by Gault Millau-Michelin for 2014. He is succeeded by former General Manager of Jumeirah Port Soller in Mallorca, Fernando Gibaja.
Stephan Schüpbach joined Jumeirah in 2006 as Hotel Manager at Jumeirah Emirates Towers, then as General Manager for Al Qasr and Dar Al Masyaf in Madinat Jumeirah. Before that he was Resident Manager at One & Only Maldives at Reethi Rah and worked for Ritz-Carlton as Executive Chef in Wolfsburg, Germany and San Juan, Puerto Rico. He also spent time in Colorado, USA, as part of the pre-opening team for the Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch Colorado and became Executive Assistant Manager for Food and Beverage Operations. During his earlier career, he worked at the Royal Mirage and Al Bustan Rotana in Dubai, The Regent Four Seasons in Hong Kong and a number of properties in Switzerland.
Stephan Schüpbach graduated in Industrial Studies at Aarau Switzerland, attended Swiss Army School and lTLB Management School in Chur, Switzerland. More recently he completed development programmes for leadership in the hospitality sector at Cornell University and a specialist course in governance, finance, strategy and leadership at the Institute of Directors in London.
Among the hotels that fall under the scope of the Vice President Operations are Burj Al Arab Jumeirah, Madinat Jumeirah, Jumeirah Beach Hotel and Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai; Jumeirah Dhevanafushi and Jumeirah Vittaveli in the Maldives and Jumeirah Himalayas Hotel in Shanghai. Jumeirah Group has a robust pipeline of new openings planned across Asia, the Middle East and Europe. A key element of Stephan Schüpbach’s new role is to drive the pre-opening preparations for new Jumeirah hotels due to open in the coming three years in China, Indonesia and India. Jumeirah Group currently operates 22 hotels in 10 destinations around the world and has management agreements in place to operate a further 17 in the next five years.
