Maltese hotelier leads London group expansion

A boy from Sliema who watched his uncle train in the tourism industry has grown to become the CEO of Maybourne, a company which owns three classy London hotels – The Berkeley, Claridge’s and The Connaught.

Stephen Alden, 48, studied at St Aloysius College and the Polytechnic but has never worked in Malta since he left in 1979, although he has a house here.

He trained in Switzerland and made waves in the hotel industry in Europe and North America before he settled with Maybourne Hotels, where his reputation was enough to justify a full page interview in London’s Sunday Times.

His plate is full. He plans to add 40 rooms above Claridge’s and an apartment complex to The Berkeley at a cost of 250 million Sterling. He also wants to expand the Maybourne portfolio with hotels in Paris, New York, Milan, Moscow and Dubai.

“Alden speaks fast Maltese-inflected English, his Mediterranean good looks offset by a hotelier’s sleekness,” said Times interviewer Andrew Davidson,

“Showing me around the Connaught’s elegantly refurbished rooms before lunch, he seems to glide rather than walk with the pin-neat appearance of a lermyn Street mannequin.”

He started work with Sheraton and became the group’s youngest general manager, in Paris. His last employers were Starwood before he opted to return to Europe for the new challenges at the Maybourne.

Married to an Italian with a two-year old son, Alden relaxes by riding his horses in Northern Italy or Bedfordshire but said he likes planning the conversion of his holiday home in Rabat.

“I have just planted 180 olive trees. We have also put in solar panels, I want to make the property as eco-friendly as possible. It’s a great place to go in summer,” he said.