ISHC Honors Ben Weprin with the Pioneer Award at ALIS

The Worldwide Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC) in partnership with The Americas Lodging Funding Summit (ALIS) offered Ben Weprin, Founder and CEO of AJ Capital Companions and creator of a number of hospitality manufacturers reminiscent of Graduate Lodges, Marine & Garden Lodges & Resorts, Discipline & Stream Lodge Co., with the 2025 Pioneer Award. Annually, the award acknowledges a person thought of a pioneer of their discipline by making an excellent contribution, achievement, or enchancment within the hospitality trade.

Pictured left to proper: Aaron Anderson, ISHC Awards Committee Co-Chair and Contributor, The 26 CO, Andrea Belfanti, CEO ISHC, Ben Weprin, Founder and CEO, AJ Capital Companions, Kristie Dickinson, ISHC Chair and Managing Director/EVP, CHMWarnick, Jeff Higley, ISHC, President, The BHN Group by Northstar

Kristie Dickinson, ISHC Chair and Managing Director/EVP of CHMWarnick, offered Weprin with the award throughout the convention plenary session. Dickinson later commented, “Ben is a visionary model builder, storyteller, and investor within the hospitality area. He has a stable monitor report in uncovering success in area of interest markets that others might have missed, creating manufacturers reminiscent of Graduate Lodges in college markets, amongst others, which have redefined product sorts by extremely experiential choices. Ben is relentless in his pursuit of transformative hospitality investments, guaranteeing that historic and culturally important properties are revitalized to foster vibrant, community-driven experiences. He’s one in every of ISHC’s youngest recipients of the Pioneer Award, if not the youngest, and it was an honor to current Ben with this award and interview him on the ALIS Convention.”

“Hospitality has captivated me for the reason that begin of my actual property profession. It’s an trade the place all the things feels tangible – the human connection, considerate design, authenticity, and placemaking that transforms areas into unforgettable locations,” Weprin notes. “At AJ Capital, we’ve had the privilege of crafting distinctive manufacturers and timeless impartial lodges, together with our most up-to-date mission, Coral Sands Inn & Cottages in Harbour Island. The visionaries on this listing, icons like Ian Schrager and Barry Sternlicht, whom I’m lucky to name mentors and pals, have been a continuing supply of inspiration all through my journey, and I’m honored to face apart them.”

Established in 1996, ISHC Pioneer Award winners are chosen on a foundation of three standards: lively involvement within the hospitality trade; contribution to the trade; and private/organizational attributes and qualities adhering to skilled requirements acknowledged and revered by trade friends.

“Ben’s imaginative and prescient for Graduate Lodges exemplifies the pioneering spirit that the award represents along with solidifying the vital affect experience-based properties have had on the general lodge trade,” stated Jeff Higley, President of The BHN Group. “Curating a group of lodges with native significance and nationwide impression is a noteworthy and feat that may function inspiration for future lodge trailblazers.”

Previous recipients of the Pioneer Award embody:

• Tracy Prigmore (2024)
• Alejandro Zozaya (2023)
• Peggy Berg (2022)
• Marilyn Carlson Nelson (2020)
• Jack DeBoer (2019)
• Wing T. Chao (2018)
• Ian Schrager (2017)
• Lyndall DeMarco (2016)
• Stephen Kaufer (2015)
• Michael Bedner (2014)
• Steve Rushmore (2013)
• Chip Conley (2012)
• Kathleen Taylor (2011)
• Leland C. Pillsbury (2010)
• J.W. Marriott (2009)
• Jean Gabriel Peres (2008)
• Stanley Selengut (2008)
• Jean-Claude Baumgarten (2007)
• James E. Burba (2007)
• Stelios Haji-Ioannou (2006)
• H.P. Rama (2006)
• Costakis Loizou (2005)
• Barry Sternlicht (2005)
• Christel DeHaan (2004)
• Regis Bulot (2004)
• Invoice Kimpton (2002)
• Jonathan M. Tisch (2001)
• Michael A. Leven (2000)
• Jack Vaughn (1999)
• George Johnson (1998)
• Randell A. Smith (1997)