Meet the rugby playing former IDF volunteer and dementia research pioneer who built a global hotel empire

Starting out in the hospitality industry, Geller climbed the ranks of five-star hotels in London and Europe before moving to the US, where he grew iconic brands like Holiday Inn and Hyatt. As the founder and CEO of Strategic Hotels & Resorts, Geller curated and managed a prestigious portfolio of luxury properties across North America and Europe, including Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton.

But it was his time in Israel volunteering in the Israeli Defense Forces age 19 that really stands out.

“This is what changed my life,” Geller, 77, tells Jewish News. “In England, you say ‘Why?’ In Israel, you say ‘Why not?’ This can-do societal attitude taught me about ambition and gave me the confidence to have the chutzpah to believe in myself – that’s everything.”

And as for Winston Churchill, Geller’s interest in the wartime leader in the 1980s when he read his ten-million word official biography. “I admired his spirit and curiosity and drew parallels between his resilience and leadership qualities and the Israeli ‘can-do’ attitude – they taught me invaluable lessons for the future.”

Geller became deeply involved with the International Churchill Society, where he eventually became Chairman in 2003 and incidentally through which he met his second wife, Jennie, Churchill’s great-granddaughter. The couple married in 2022.

Geller is the largest donor to the International Churchill Society and in 2015, he donated $1m to make Churchill’s papers available to schoolchildren throughout the world accompanied by tailored learning modules.

Philanthropy is a huge part of Geller’s life – he gives away around 75 percent of his money to a variety of causes (more on this later).

The affable businessman continues to embody Churchill’s steadfast resolve and the Israeli can-do spirit in all his ventures. There are many. He has written two novels, run more than twenty marathons, speaks multiple languages, dabbles in art, is the founder and chairman of Love of the Game, which focuses on the prevention of concussion in sport and is a doting grandfather of eight. No wonder he gets up at 4am every day.

And then there’s his latest passion project, Loveday, luxury purpose-built and designed residential and daycare home for residents with dementia, inspired by his parents, who both suffered with the disease.

“My father died when he was 90 and was certainly suffering from increasingly severe dementia at the end. My mother died six years later and she had the full-blown version of the disease,” recalls Geller.

Geller had funded medical research into dementia and knew that dementia care was “under-funded and underwhelmed.

“Every three minutes somebody is diagnosed with dementia.

“I still feel sad when I think of the impact it had on my parents and wish that I knew then what I know now. I may have made their lives better.”

The first Loveday home opened in Chelsea in 2016. He plans to have a total of seven up and running across the UK by the end of next year. Geller has become a leading expert in the area of geriatric healthcare and serves as Global Business Ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society. He is the single biggest donor to dementia care in the UK.

Geller supports a variety of causes including sports, education, children’s health, healthcare and dementia care.

“I grew up as a Jew in Post-War London,” says Geller. “There was a culture of philanthropy. If you had anything you shared it. My parents were broke but gave away more than they had, as felt others needed it. A dozen years ago I made a promise that I would give away 75 percent of my money and I’m sticking to it.”

Geller, now based in Fulham, comes from very humble beginnings. He attended a state school near to where he lived in Edgware but found he could not keep up financially with the other Jewish boys so sought refuge in sports. “I ended up sailing – hardly a Jewish thing – and then I was the English triple jump champion, under 15s.” At the same time, he became the first Jew ever to play rugby for a British team. “I played for the English under 15s. That was my way out.”

Geller had spent the holidays working in hotel kitchens and when an injury ended his chances of a sporting career aged 15, Geller’s dad sent him to Zurich, where there was a thriving hotel industry.

“I had no money and spent the first few days sleeping on benches then somehow I ended up working in a hotel kitchen.”

In the early 1960s, Geller returned to London and became a chef at the Connaught.

“Eventually, when I was at school, I was approached by Ronnie Cohen [later Sir Ronald Cohen], who asked me to join the Jewish Lads’ Brigade athletics tournament. He said, ‘If you’re on our team, we’ll win.’ I did and I enjoyed it. Geller got involved in the Special Activities Section. “It was sort of sub rosa, I viewed it as combating antisemitism. With my strength from rugby, and my general fearlessness and willingness to take on anyone, I used that against antisemitism.” But a few years later, when he was working as assistant manager at London’s Park Lane Hotel later and had an altercation with an Arab client and the hotel’s “Colonel Blimp type” manager told him that if that was how he felt, he should “join those Jews in Palestine and their army”, so I did.”

He spent the best part of a year in Israel before returning to the UK, where he met his first wife – the couple married in London before returning to Israel – and he worked for a hotel consultancy before returning to the UK to help his father, who was facing financial difficulties amidst the recession in the early 1970s.

Geller landed a job at the Grand Metropolitan group before being recruited to run the Holiday Inn group’s International organisation in Memphis Tennessee. Geller’s eldest daughter Tanya, who was five at the time, had a serious heart condition, and the company had offered to help with treatment at a top cardiology specialist in Houston, so Geller, his wife and their two children emigrated to the States and he took the job.

“I thought we would be there for two years. It ended up being forty and our third child was born there.” He says: “I looked after Holiday Inn then set up my own business and bought a bunch of Holiday Inns. I made a lot of money and lost a lot of money.” He subsequently served as the Chief Operating Officer of Hyatt Development Corporation. After a near death experience in the early 1990’s, in 1996, he founded the multinational high-end hotel owning company, Strategic Hotels & Resorts, which he took public on the NYSE in 2004 but exited in 2013 after a “nightmare few years of surviving the recession and rebuilding the business”

He explains: “I had split from my wife after 40 years, the stock market crashed, I was in debt, and the company was close to bankruptcy.” But Geller managed to build it back and at the end of 2015, Strategic Hotels and its portfolio of 17 hotels was bought by Blackstone for $5.5 billion.”

In 2010, Geller took up a position as Chancellor of the University of West London, where he had studied, and soon realised that he wanted to create a new model of dementia care in the UK together with his son, Guy, the company’s co-director. Guy has served on the board of the Illinois chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association while Geller chaired the national fundraising campaign for the Alzheimer’s Society (UK). In 2018 he decided to move back to London.

While Loveday is Geller’s passion and takes up a majority of his time, Geller remains Chancellor of the University of West London, where he received a lifetime achievement award in 2009, and also still runs Geller Capital Partners, a property investment company based in Chicago, the University being among his significant philanthropic commitments.

He believes that we “make a life by what we give” and says there are stark differences between the UK and US when it comes to charity.

“In the US, philanthropy has tax benefits and is ingrained in the business culture with people seeing it as their duty to support different communities and organisations but in the UK, well, business people can be pretty crappy, and will maybe pick one or two charities, not a wide range and often don’t come to the charity dinners.”

For Geller, success is not just about the bottom line; “it’s about blending business with philanthropy and leaving the world a better place than when you found it.”

By CANDICE KRIEGER