When George Jordan, president of Oxford Hotels & Resorts, talks about hospitality, he doesn’t start with locations, brand standards or technology stacks. He starts with a Holiday Inn.
As a child, Jordan’s father was an Army officer, and the family moved frequently across the United States. Each relocation meant long drives in the family station wagon and overnight stops at Holiday Inns and Ramada Inns—experiences that, for young George, were pure magic.
“I’ve always had an innate love and curiosity about hotels,” Jordan said. “It really goes back to childhood.”
That early fascination became the foundation of a four-decade career that has taken him from busboy to president, across multiple brands and independents, and cycles of crisis and reinvention.
From Busboy to President
Jordan’s entry into hospitality was pragmatic: he needed beer money in college. He took a job as a busboy at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix. The job gave him more than cash—it gave him a sense of camaraderie and a deep attachment to the concept of hospitality.
He soon moved to the Arizona Biltmore, a five-star resort where he received classic, high-touch food and
beverage training: White glove service, captains, back waiters, sommeliers and tableside cooking. The Biltmore promoted him into its management program as what was called cellar master, overseeing the wine portfolio—a role that, as he joked, “sounded kind of kinky,” but proved foundational.
From there, Jordan’s path was anything but linear. He waited tables in St. Paul and Minneapolis, including
at Windows on Minnesota on the 50th floor, where a new French General Manager, Jean-Marie Grouard, noticed him. Soon after, HR called.
“I thought, ‘Oh God, what have I done wrong?’” he said. “Instead, they asked me to join the catering department as a salesperson.”
Jordan didn’t want the job. He had a cushy server schedule—2 p.m. to 10 p.m.—and was making good money. The sales role meant earlier hours and less immediate income. But at age 30, he recognized it as a turning point.
“Opportunities knocking—you better open the door and go through it,” he said.
He did. That decision launched him into management, then into food and beverage director roles, and eventually into area food and beverage director for Hilton International, overseeing operations across North America, South America and the Caribbean.
When he was told he had gone as far as he could in F&B, he pivoted again—this time into hotel operations,
becoming hotel manager at The Drake in Chicago. A proposed transfer to Trinidad and Tobago convinced him to instead jump to a nearby independent property, the Raffaello hotel, as general manager.
In 2009, he joined Oxford Hotels & Resorts in Chicago. Over time, he rose from area general manager to vice president, senior vice president, executive vice president and now president. “It’s been a good run,” he said simply.
The Power of Food & Beverage
Ask Jordan which roles shaped him most, and he didn’t hesitate: Food and beverage followed by his first independent GM posting.
At The Drake, F&B was a complex, high-stakes discipline: three meal periods a day, catering, multiple outlets, 17 unions, and a storied legacy with profitability that still needed work. For Jordan, it was both “angst” and “success”—an intensive training in how to rethink underperforming operations.
A formative moment came when that mentor Grouard asked, “What would you change?” Jordan’s answer: “Everything.”
He rejected the traditional “dining room” mentality in hotels and argued that guests don’t aspire to dine in “a dining room”—they want to go to restaurants with their own identity, entrance, marketing and unique selling proposition.
He systematically re-concepted outlets, one business unit at a time, transforming them into competitive
operations.
His first GM role at the Raffaello Hotel delivered a different kind of lesson. After a few days on the job, he tried using his new phone’s speed-dial buttons to reach internal departments—IT, housekeeping, purchasing.
Every button rang back to his own line.
“I was like, ‘Oh, we’ve got a problem,’” he recalled. “There was not a Rolodex of people to call on. This was a
small hotel ... all decisions rested back with me.”
That realization forced him to confront leadership in its purest form: He had to be the one to stand up and solve problems, but he also could not do it alone. It clarified a central truth he now applies across Oxford: One person cannot run a hotel; you need an army—and you need them aligned.
Jordan began to focus on early on recruiting, inspiring, training and retaining staff so they would be as invested in the project as he was.
“Yeah, it’s a bricks and mortar hotel, but it’s all about the people and the service that’s going on inside—to each other, to our customers, to our vendors.”
Today, he articulates Oxford’s core philosophy in three words: People, performance, profit.
Oxford's Operating Philosophy
“Oxford Hotels and Resorts is not just a management company,” he explained. “Our DNA is as a real estate
investment company, because we own and operate hotels.”
That owner-operator model exposed him to return on investment, acquisitions and dispositions, design,
architecture, interior design, concepting, marketing, public relations and social media—areas typically handled by brand or corporate offices in larger chains.
“As an independent owner and operator, you do it all in-house,” he said. “We’re fully vertically integrated across all aspects of it ... I’ve gotten most of that through my mentor, John Rutledge.”
When Jordan joined Oxford, the company had just two hotels, and he was an area general manager. That small scale gave him what he calls “working incubator” conditions to experiment with revenue management, guest service delivery and operations.
As Oxford grew—with properties like The Godfrey Hotel Chicago and LondonHouse Chicago—Jordan knew he had to codify what was working. Two core frameworks emerged—one was going back to that core philosophy: People, performance and profit.
People: “The right people in the right job at the right time with the right skill set and the right training.”
Performance: Delivering against market share, profitability, guest satisfaction, expense control and other KPIs.
Profit: Returns to owners that, in turn, enable reinvestment in people and product, creating a virtuous cycle.
The second framework became: Exceeding guest expectations, one guest at a time. Jordan said this phrase
evolved from “meet guest expectations” into a richer formulation: Exceed guest expectations, one guest at a time, through authentic and memorable experiences.
Oxford’s portfolio today includes about 26 operating hotels, where the company acts either as owner-
operator or third-party manager. The mix spans independents and major brands such as Hyatt’s Thompson, Le Méridien, Westin and multiple Hilton Curio properties.
Balancing brand standards with local relevance is a key strategic task, particularly with soft brands.
Jordan describes Oxford’s approach as “open architecture”: They begin with a SWOT analysis (strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, threats) to understand each property’s core DNA.
They prioritize hyper-local experiences—a concept that Oxford embraced long before it became an industry
buzzword.
Where a brand requires a fixed concept, Oxford complies. But in soft-brand or flexible environments, the company works to infuse its independent DNA into the property.
“We really try to make sure that our independent DNA is fused with the brand standards,” Jordan said. “We follow the brand standards, no question, but we’re not afraid to expand them or reduce them, depending on the local market.”
He has a simple test for success at Oxford’s properties. “When you walk into a hotel, you almost instantly get this vibe,” he said. “You know, ‘Oh, this is a cool hotel. This is hip. This is fun. It smells good. I like this place.’ Or you walk in and think, ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’”
For Jordan, the goal is always the former.
“I want happy hotels,” he said. “I want our people to be happy. I want our guests to be happy. I want the vibe to be right. The brands want that too—happy guests that are going to come back.”
This article was originally published in the June/July edition of Hotel Management magazine. Subscribe here.