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OUR VALUE PROPOSITION

No line of business requires competence in as many skill sets as the hospitality industry. Depending on the property and context, one project team may need the best thinking on brand strategy and ways to translate that strategy into physical form and service experiences, while another may need us to provide expert advice on the latest in revenue management strategies, how to design within the confines of a landmark building, or the best maker of walk-in coolers in which to age Kobe beef.

Amongst all these skills, the single skill that is the most important, as any experienced hospitality executive knows, is the ability to build and direct teams in the first place. Having someone who can identify and prioritize client needs, nominate the individuals or agencies with the skills most likely to deliver, and guide the complexities and multiple work-streams of the realization process lies at the heart of success.

This is our role at Craft House.

Collectively, our core team has over 160 years of hospitality experience and 70 years of consulting experience under our belts. We have deep connections in the hospitality community and related categories across the world, at every stage of the hospitality product and service lifecycle. We know the specialists who are otherwise unattainable, those who prefer dynamic project work to full-time work, and we know their strengths and weaknesses. Once we get a chance to know you, we will know which experts will fit best with YOUR team culture. And if we don’t know exactly the right person for your project, we almost certainly know someone who will. Together with our directors, these custom built project teams are assembled with your unique challenge at our hearts and with a realistic assessment of budgets, timing and desired outcomes.

No formulas, no standard deliverables, no me-too ideas, no limitations of the fixed staff agency model. For your inspiring destination, you need creative solutions. And creative solutions require project teams that have been purpose-built with you in mind.

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FOUNDER & Principals

Featured

Yvette Jong, Founder & Principal

Yvette was born and raised in NYC and graduated from Cornell’s School of Hotel Management. For the past 23 years, Yvette has been drawn to the changing landscape of the hospitality industry and innovations that keep it compelling and relevant. After working across the industry in 4 continents in interior design, operations and HR at Soho House New York and High Road House London, and hotel development with Horwath HTL in Hong Kong, she founded Craft House in 2011 to provide clients with a vertically integrated solution to ensure projects operate and perform as well as they look on the cover of a magazine. Yvette is a LEED® Green Associate, author of the HOTELsMag blog, 'The good, the bad and the funky,' community advocate and amazing mom.

Jonas Ogren, Principal

Jonas is originally from Sweden but spent his teenage years in Ethiopia. After graduating from Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration, his 30-year career took him from hotel operations in Beijing to the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific where he served as Managing Director of the Marianas Visitor's Authority on Saipan. He then moved to Singapore to join Horwath HTL on hotel development and valuation projects across the Asia Pacific before spearheading STR Global’s hospitality benchmarking services in Asia Pacific. Other experience includes HR, F&B and sales and marketing. Jonas has been in Monaco since 2015, owns and operates a serviced office, is the president of SKAL Monaco, is involved in a number of other industry organizations, charities and educational initiatives, and is a proud father of two.

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OUR Resources & Consultants

Featured

Peter Mack, Brand Strategy

Peter has over 35 years of brand strategy experience across the globe and numerous industry sectors. He is responsible for strategy for Elephant LLC and Craft House Consulting, and is a senior contractor to Landor Associates in Asia. He works with a diverse set of clients including Tesla Motors, Chow Sang Sang Jewelry, Thai Union Group, Jin Jiang International Hotels, Greenland Development and CP Group among many others. Prior to starting Elephant, Peter was Executive VP at Enterprise IG for 6 years working with Caterpillar Inc., Brown-Forman, FujiFilm USA, Nestlé Foods, and AMD. Before that he was with Landor Associates managing strategic brand projects for Deere & Company, Hewlett-Packard, Lincoln-Mercury, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Telecom, Caltex, Singha Beer and Pepsi Foods, among many others. Peter holds a B.A. degree in Political Science and Oriental Languages with honors from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mark Somen, Strategic Advisor

Mark’s hospitality career began in Kenya at the age of sixteen when he led safaris in his native country for Abercrombie and Kent. He has since held leadership positions at the Connaught Hotel in London, The Pierre Hotel, Four Seasons New York, China Grill Management, the Hudson Hotel in New York, the Tribe Hotel in Nairobi and Soho House New York, where he worked with Yvette. Mark later became the Director of Operations for Soho House North America responsible for the development and openings of Soho Beach House in Miami, Soho House West Hollywood, the Soho House satellite clubs in Los Angeles, and Cecconi’s restaurant in West Hollywood. He was most recently the CEO for The Conduit in London. Mark is the Chair of the Board for FilmAid International and sits on the Board of the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust and A Plastic Planet, is a proud Kenyan, focused on the intersection of hospitality and impact, and proud father of three.

Phillip Ting, Creative Strategy

Phillip has over 20 years of experience in design. Prior to starting Elephant LLC, he ran his own firm, Studio Ting, for three years. For ten years before that, he was creative director at Enterprise IG San Francisco, developing creative solutions for consumer clients including Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestlé, Brown-Forman, Pacific Bell, Luxeon, United Way and Motel 6. His work is acknowledged in numerous publications and has won national awards. Phillip helps Craft House clients bring their brand into physical form through identity, collateral and packaging. Phillip is also an adjunct professor at the California College of the Arts (formerly CCAC) and teaches at the Academy of Art.

Luke Rinaman, Culinary Strategy

Luke has over 35 years of experience in the hospitality field working for various international companies including over 20 years with China Grill Management as Corporate Chef, Director of Operations and development and operations consultant where he utilized a diverse set of skills in concept development and execution. Luke also worked with Four Seasons Hotels and InterContinental Hotels in Miami, Jakarta and New Orleans. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience with independent and hotel restaurants of all sizes and concepts and provides a range of culinary strategies including concept refinement, menu development, repositioning, growth strategy, kitchen design, training and development, to produce measurable results for clients.

Elephant LLC

Like Yvette at Craft House, Peter and Phillip began Elephant LLC because of a frustration with the direction that their particular category seemed to be headed. Beginning in the 90s, graphic design and brand strategy firms began to be swept up in the consolidation tsunami that had swept through the advertising category the decade before. The result were firms that were getting larger and larger and more and more focused on the absolute value of efficiency, a philosophy demanding that client communication needs be broken down into discrete, easily managed and easily analyzed sub-groups, usually aligned along the buying habits and personnel of the clients themselves. This model works very well for meeting the needs of large corporate companies but often fails at meeting needs of small and medium sized companies who haven't reached the scale where communication needs can be efficiently spread across a number of functional departments. On the contrary, these companies usually have a small number of people trying to stay on top of a mounting set of communication challenges and the last thing they need is a baker’s dozen of specialist firms bickering over how to divide up a never-too-generous budget. Instead, Peter and Phillip wanted to offer services of a firm that could offer holistic brand advice ranging from definition of corporate culture to the best way to pitch product to a grocery broker – in short they wanted an agency that could offer the whole elephant rather than disconnected bits and pieces. Elephant provides Craft House clients with senior advice on development of value proposition, corporate culture, the most efficient development and implementation of core identity elements and how best to establish brand training and engagement.