In 2016, Penn left the company to co-found the lifestyle membership club Birch. He left the business in 2022 and has since worked in hospitality advisory roles.
Writing on LinkedIn, Penn said: “I’m incredibly proud to announce that I’m rejoining Ace Hotel/Atelier Ace as CEO of the company. Ace Hotel is a brand that has shaped a generation of hotels whilst creating and amplifying new ideas and new businesses, and platforming genuine and long-lasting relationships and partnerships, through openness, accessibility, freedom and collaboration.
“While automated and artificial, fake and false, hyper-connected and yet increasingly isolated are all becoming themes of the decade and cues to the future, Ace is, in my estimation, the one hotel brand that still, through independence, creativity and humanity (and a bucket load of resilience), remains true to its values. Values that not only survive the past and provide relief in the challenges of the present, but those that will become its superpowers in the future.
“I cannot wait to collaborate again with such an incredible team of individuals and to use our collective human intelligence (HI not AI) and creativity to power and invent the future of lifestyle hotels,” he added.
Ace Hotels was founded in 1999 and its current portfolio includes nine properties in the US, Greece, Japan and Australia. There are plans to open a second hotel in Japan (Fukuoka) in 2027.
Eloise Hanson
