To some, Gordon Campbell Gray might seem like a paradox. The hotelier, known for his boutique and luxury creations, is equally praised for his tireless work on causes and fundraisers — he is vice president of Save the Children UK, and spends a lot of his time in areas strife with war and disease, and is an ardent promoter of environmental conservation.

So, will the real Gordon Campbell Gray please stand up?

EARLY YEARS AND INFLUENCES

Brought up in Renfrewshire in Scotland, Gray is the eldest son of a Scottish family, and his foray into hospitality was not planned, neither was it welcomed. Initially dreaming of becoming an architect, Gray says he couldn’t pass the science exam. But he was inspired by his aunt whom he says “virtually lived in Claridge’s in London” and decided he would take a stab at hotel school. “To my family’s horror,” adds Gray. “When I told my father I was going to be a hotelier, he was so shocked, he dropped a cup, he said, ‘Gordon, you stay in hotels, you don’t work in them’.”

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He admits to having walked out of hotel school, and says: “I used to be embarrassed about this, but now I’m proud of it, because I thought the teachers were awful, I thought the people I was studying with were boring. I thought, I’m being corrupted here and I need to paddle my own canoe.”

He then worked at various properties, including London’s Portman InterContinental. However, he resigned and joined Save The Children and ran its project in Bangladesh for two years, after seeing heart-breaking stories of the war in the region.

The experience changed his life, and was one of the defining factors behind his work ethos. “It’s why I have always emphasised the value of treating people well, and it changed the way I took the company [forward].”

In 1982, he returned to the UK and bought and opened The Feathers at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, followed by The Draycott in London in 1987. He sold these properties, and then re-launched The Maidstone Arms in East Hampton, New York. In 1996, he acquired the classic Edwardian building in central London that is now One Aldwych, which opened as a hotel in July 1998. The group ended management of the hotel in 2011.

He officially launched CampbellGray Hotels in 2003, which is now a small collection of luxury and individual hotels in Europe and the Middle East.