Speaker profile
Oliver Ripley
Habitas
Oliver Ripley is a serial entrepreneur, investor and founder of a diverse group of companies across technology, real estate, agriculture and hospitality. Born in the United Kingdom, Mr. Ripley was educated at Eton College and Oxford University and is fluent in 5 languages.
He is CEO and co-founder of Habitas, a company that is disrupting the hospitality industry through its innovative business model and technology-driven approach. Due to its vertical integration, Habitas reduces the development cycle of building a hotel to under 9 months, by the hotels in its own factory and assembling the hotels on-site using sustainable materials and building practices. It operates the hotels under Habitas flag as an experience and lifestyle brand focused on wellness, sustainability, community and experiences, redefining the concept of traditional luxury.
Oliver is also the founder and served as the CEO of Black Ocean, a technology investment group that builds, invests and operates technology businesses in the US, Europe and Asia, focused on media and ecommerce. Oliver was the co-founder of Elite Daily that sold to the Daily Mail in 2015, which at the time was the largest Gen-Y media publisher in the world. He was also co-founder of Kite Ltd, a data ecommerce platform that sold to Canon in 2017.
Oliver founded Kronos Capital, a private equity fund, to acquire distressed RE in Europe and Russia. The fund was sold to Russian Land, a $10bn real estate and investment company, where Oliver became a partner and took the role of head of Business Development and was responsible for its regional roll out. Russian Land developed 5-star hotels, premium residential and mixed-use projects working closely with architects such as Norman Foster, Herzog and De Meuron.
Oliver was the founder and CEO of Ocean Group, an investment company that invested and operated across several high growth sectors. These included: agriculture (Natural Farming), corporate f inance (Kronos Advisers), media, and private aviation (Ocean Sky). Ocean Group created a platform to buy distressed assets from the FDIC that was taken over by Cantor Fitzgerald.
Oliver is an active philanthropist. He founded and drives Habitas Rise, the charity and impact arm of Habitas. Habitas Rise was established to empower and create impact in local communities where Habitas operates. Oliver also helped start and sat on the board of Beespace, a non-profit incubator, which incubated a wide range of non-profits from the Malala Fund, to working with local organizations in teaching kid’s yoga/meditation.