Alejandro Bernabé was appointed Chief Executive Officer at Kempinski Hotels in October 2014, aged 44, and brings renewed vigour to Kempinski’s Management Board. Bernabé is a Kempinski success story, having been groomed for senior management over the course of 16 years with the company. He is known for his practical, hands-on experience in city and resort hotels, and an inspirational and rigorous management style. Bernabé’s mandate is to ensure a smooth transition and to continue building the group.

Bernabé started his career in Food & Beverage, which is a core focus, and indeed passion, for the group, working in Switzerland, South Africa, France and Sri Lanka, before joining Kempinski in 1998 as pre-opening Food & Beverage Manager at the Kempinski Hotel Plaza in Jakarta. Bernabé continued in Food & Beverage at the Grand Hotel Europe in St Petersburg, managed by Kempinski as the time, then at the Çırağan Palace Kempinski in Istanbul. He was soon promoted to Resident Manager in Spain, then General Manager in Malta, Kuwait and Jordan. Bernabé led Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates in Dubai to increasingly high levels of performance and quality standards and he was then transferred to manage the Siam Kempinski Hotel in Bangkok. There he reaffirmed the hotel’s strong reputation as one of the city’s most important leisure and culinary destinations.

In 2013, Bernabé was made responsible for the group’s operations and development efforts in Southeast Asia, and his development efforts in one of the group’s most important emerging regions have already resulted in the group signing two exciting hotels in Myanmar.

A graduate of the Hotel Institute Montreux in Switzerland, Bernabé graduated cum laude with a Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts USA, as well as an MBA from Reims Management School in France. Bernabé is married with two children, is a real family man and a keen outdoors sportsman. He enjoys discovering new places and people. Bernabé is Spanish and in addition to his mother tongue, speaks English and French.