Jay HUMPHRIES
Founder, C-Suite Advisor and Host
C-Suite Advisor, Leadership and Career Transition Coach, Facilitator, Collaborative HoCoSo Team Lead, Explorer of New Initiatives and Opportunities, Hospitality Concept Co-Creator, Champion for Change.
Educator, Programme and Specialisation Leader, Industry Liaison, Creator of Educational Programmes and Training.
Moderator, Speaker and Podcaster.
Jay leads the HoCoSo team across its projects and initiatives. They thrive on collaborating with owners, boards, C-suite leaders, teams, clients, students and partners to find transformative, human-centred solutions for the future of hospitality and beyond.
Their work now spans C-suite advisory, leadership coaching and facilitation, career and organisational transition, hospitality strategy, concept creation and the development of more human-centred organisations and experiences. Jay is particularly drawn to moments of transition—when a person, organisation or concept needs to reconsider where it is going, what it stands for and what should come next.
Focused on sharing ideas, knowledge and experience—and on opening up networks—Jay has created and launched three platforms in recent years: HoCoSo CONNECT, The Hospitality Resilience Series and HoCoSo CONVERSATION.
Across a career spanning around 30 years, Jay has worked internationally in consulting, hotel development, education, concept creation and strategic advisory. One of their long-standing projects has involved guiding SV Group through the concept creation, brand and design development, prototyping, strategic expansion, organisational set-up and go-to-market strategy of Stay KooooK, as well as the benchmarking and improvement of the customer and employee technology journey for likeMagic.
Together, these innovations have received several international awards:
- Stay KooooK won the Swiss Hotel Innovation Award in 2019 and the Serviced Apartment Award 2021 for Best Use of Technology.
- likeMagic won gold for Best Digital Transformation and silver for Customer-Driven Business Change and Transformation at the European Customer Experience Awards 2022.
- likeMagic also received two gold awards at the International Customer Experience Awards 2022, for Best Use of Technology (B2C) and Best Digital Transformation.
Between 2017 and 2024, Jay was Head of the International Hotel Development & Asset Management Specialisations at Glion Institute of Higher Education. There, they created new programmes and initiatives, led a team of talented industry and academic professionals, and acted as spokesperson and industry liaison for the programmes.
Today, Jay also works with senior leaders and experienced professionals navigating career, leadership and life transitions. Through one-to-one coaching, group facilitation and programme development, they help people regain perspective, identify meaning and direction, and turn reflection into practical action. Their approach draws on senior leadership experience, education, meaning-centred practice, logotherapy, Compassionate Inquiry and their continuing professional development as a member of EMCC.
Jay believes that organisations can achieve strong commercial results while also placing people, purpose and the wider world at the heart of how they operate. They seek to collaborate with leaders who want to create meaningful change—strengthening culture, diversity, psychological safety, mental health and wellbeing, while designing organisations and experiences in which people can belong, grow and show up as they are.
A dedicated father to two courageous sons and a humble perfectionist, Jay is also a committed cold-water enthusiast, with well over 1000 swims and counting.
Jay has Irish and English roots and has lived in Switzerland for more than 20 years.
