Who we are

Who are Mr & Mrs Smith? In addition to the writers, rock stars and restaurant critics on our reviewer panel, here's who makes Mr & Mrs Smith happen:

Managing director James Lohan is one half of the couple behind Mr & Mrs Smith. His first company, Atomic, organised legendary London parties and corporate events. Working in industries he was passionate about, he moved in line with his target market and co-founded a restaurant and members’ club the White House. Next, naturally, he turned his attentions to boutique hotels. Since Mr & Mrs Smith’s first guidebook was published under the Spy Publishing imprint in 2003, Smith has grown under James’ entrepreneurial eye from a labour of love to a multi-faced boutique travel provider. The introduction of an online booking service in 2005 and an in-house reservations team in 2006 shifted the business in an exciting new direction. The company has developed a three-tiered membership programme which includes a full travel and lifestyle concierge service, and has attracted over 75,000 active members. Latest projects include launching the Smith brand in the USA and opening an office in Australia to expand into the Asia-Pacific region, as well as introducing a 24-hour telephone booking service for luxury travellers worldwide.

Marketing director Tamara Heber-Percy, co-founder of Mr & Mrs Smith, graduated from Oxford with a degree in languages – which has proven vital in helping take Smith around the world. After growing up between Ibiza and Shropshire, her first job took her to Brazil to launch a new energy drink. Since then, she has worked as a marketing consultant for brands such as Ericsson, Honda, Unilever and Swissair, and then in business development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at one of the UK’s top marketing agencies. She left the corporate world in 2002 to head up her own company The County Register – an exclusive introductions agency – and to launch Mr & Mrs Smith. Combining travel expertise with cutting-edge technological knowledge, Tamara has been the architect behind the development of Mr & Mrs Smith’s e-commerce-enabled website, and has masterminded an array of technical integrations with bookings engines and content feeds to high-profile affiliates, as well as maximising SEO, introducing consumer-generated content and co-ordinating the recent launch of the Smith Travel Blog.

Publishing and co-founding director Andrew Grahame started his business life by launching the country’s first corporate-fashion mag in 1990. After growing the company to include fashion shows, exhibitions and conferences, he transferred his talents from business wear to business finance, launching Small Company Investor. He founded GT Promotions in 1993, with clients such as Sony and Virgin. Andrew took on tourism in 1997, creating the award-winning London Pass and New York Pass. In 2004 he launched property search company First Search UK and two years later, production company Bump TV to co-produce and co-present our TV series The Smiths' Hotels for 2 for  Discovery. 

Financial director Edward Orr has been working in investment banking, and managing companies in their early stage for more than 10 years. As a result he has had to stay in many hotels across five different continents – and generally, he doesn't like them. This makes him qualified not only to look after the finances of Mr & Mrs Smith but also to have penned one of the team reviews – and he can confirm that Mr & Mrs Smith hotels really are special enough to be a treat, even for the most jaded corporate traveller.

Asia Pacific co-founder and managing director Simon Westcott grew up in London, but has made Melbourne and the Victorian Goldfields home for over 10 years. Educated at Oxford and in the US, he is a former global publisher and director of the Lonely Planet group, and a current contributing editor for Travel + Leisure Australia and New Zealand. He has travelled extensively in Asia and has already enjoyed writing a few reviews under the Mr & Mrs Smith pseudonym. He's as excited as a puppy about the partnership with James and Tamara and the whole Smith team.

EDITORIAL

Editor-in-chief, Juliet Kinsman, helped develop Smith from a twinkle in James' and Tamara's eyes in 2002. She defected from dancefloors to do-not-disturb signs, having edited music mags in the Nineties and contributing to The Face and Time Out. Editing a youth culture website during the pre-millenium dot.com frenzy and working on the BBC's homepage nurtured an understanding of the internet, but now that she shares travel secrets in publications from The Guardian through to Grazia, and having presented The Smiths' Hotels for 2 on the Discovery channel, her heart belongs to hotels. Born in Canada, with stints in Africa, America, Greece and India, Juliet now remains faithful to her home turf of Queen's Park.

Associate editor Lucy Fennings (currently on maternity leave) cut her travel teeth early; as daughter of a hotel PR, she visited far-flung flophouses from French châteaux to Ethiopian tukuls. After a year in Dubai (working on Emirates Woman magazine and enjoying the kind of dives that require a wetsuit), Lucy went to Glasgow University to study art, literature and whisky. A stint at Legalease publishing was spent discovering how to be creative with copy about tax, followed quickly by a stint touring Asia, discovering more interesting things. When Mr & Mrs Smith found her, Lucy was deputy chief sub-editor at Harper’s Bazaar, keeping her finger on fashion’s pulse and sharpening her editorial knife on hapless hotel PR copy. She has been a driving force in making the Smith Travel Blog an award-winner.

Before joining Mr & Mrs Smith, managing editor Anthony Leyton was at The Independent, writing about universities for the Push Guides. As you can imagine, it was a tough task persuading him to exchange league tables for luxury holiday retreats and halls of residence for hip hotels. Anthony has penned pieces for publications both top-drawer (The Telegraph) and top-shelf (Fiesta), and he has had a love of travel ever since he found bullet holes in the walls of a hotel room in New Orleans. He also has too many pets. But that's another tale altogether. His tweets as Twitter.com/smithhotels exemplify our entertaining-and-informative editorial house style as do his entertaining blog posts.

Acting associate editor Kate Pettifer was travel editor at Eve magazine before packing up her wheelie case to go freelance. She has written for the good (Sunday Times Travel Magazine, the Daily Telegraph, Coast), the bad (International Tanker Review) and the healthy (Zest, Health & Fitness, Adventure Travel). Only the lure of luxurious boutique hotels was enough to tempt her out of her pyjamas and back to an office. Stepping into Lucy’s well-travelled shoes for a while, Kate is enjoying twittering (sorry, tweeting), blogging and grammar-policing our hotel reviews. Personal travel triumphs include sailing transatlantic on a square rigger, working as a ski rep in the Italian Alps and completing the skeleton bob in Norway (no, she didn’t wear Lycra). 

Contributing editor Sophie Dening was one of the founder editors of Mr & Mrs Smith. She writes freelance on UK travel and restaurants for Harper's Bazaar, Country Living, Country & Town House, High Life, Square Meal andTimes Magazine.

Contributing editor Rufus Purdy began his working life dressed as a giant banana (complete with yellow tights), handing flyers to tourists outside Covent Garden tube station. He then graduated to the heights of junior sub-editor at Harper’s Bazaar, where he honed his skills dragging celebrities’ barely literate copy into the realms of acceptability. A spell at Condé Nast Traveller pigeon-holed him for life, and he has since claimed free holidays as travel editor at Psychologies, or on jaunts for The Observer, Elle and The New York Post. Aside from travel, his other passions include an unswerving devotion to Sheffield Wednesday football club.

Weeks before joining Mr & Mrs Smith's editorial team, Sarah Jappy was cutting her travel-writing teeth by interviewing hot blondes in Copenhagen for a virginmedia.com city guide. Having penned food porn for Blue Tomato and fashion features at Itchy City Guides, Sarah was delighted to bring an appetite for alliteration and expert opinion on hot topics including: the marzipan to pastry ratio of the perfect almond croissant, which shop-bought hollandaise sauce generates the best eggs benedict and where to source the capital’s most drool-worthy moules mariniere. That's not to even mention her 12 years of Irish dancing prowess.

Editorial assistant Caroline Lewis joined the Mr and Mrs Smith editorial team from World Travel Guide, where she was forced to write about some of the world’s most exotic and glamorous destinations from perhaps the ugliest suburb off the M25. Prior to that, she spent a year learning how to make magazines at Bournemouth University, having previously philosophised with the greats at Durham. Her love of travel began when she disappeared into the jungles of South America at the age of 19, much to the (financial and spiritual) displeasure of her father. Now ‘her thing’ can be described as baking, and she arguably makes the best cupcakes this side of Greenwich Village.

DESIGN, PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRODUCTION

Associate director Laura Mizon spent her younger years living in Spain and, after graduating from Manchester University, returned to the country of her childhood to spend four years at an independent record label in Madrid, promoting the emerging Spanish hip-hop movement. Soon after she joined Mr & Mrs Smith on a freelance basis in 2004, it became clear that Laura was to play a key role in the company. She is now responsible for building relationships with like-minded brands and all things operational.

Production executive Jasmine Darby arrived on the Smith scene in the middle of a major office upgrade from the deepest, darkest, depths of Clapham to a much more salubrious station in Chiswick. She graduated from Manchester University with a degree in History of Art in July 2006 and accepted her role at Smith soon after, more than happy to swap the fear of studenty electric-shock nylon sheets for the hope of close contact with Frette bedlinen.

Bloom Design, creators of the Mr & Mrs Smith brand and designers of the book, are one of the UK’s freshest design agencies. Founded in 2001 by three of the youngest heavyweights in the industry, Gavin Blake, Ben White and Harriet Marshall, Bloom is responsible for inspirational brand designs for some of Europe’s and the USA’s leading consumer brand companies. The house style is bold, iconic and distinctive, and their attitude open and irreverent.

Renowned for a creative, yet meticulous approach to his work, Adrian Houston has photographed famous personalities and unusual landscapes, as well as shooting big advertising campaigns. He has photographed faces such as the Dalai Lama, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Luciano Pavarotti and Jim Carrey, and his images have appeared in Vogue, GQ and The Sunday Times. Adrian has commercial clients throughout the world, and has created his best work in some of the world’s most unexplored locations; the Discovery Channel featured him on their Discovery People series.

HOTEL COLLECTIONS

Having grown up in the south of Spain, head of hotel collections Katy McCann moved to Madrid after graduating from Manchester University. There she pursued a career in journalism, to become editor of the largest English publication in the city, In Madrid. Drawn back to London by the English weather, she was tracked down by the Mr & Mrs Smith team to help work on the European Collection, which fits in perfectly with her love of travelling, her multilingual skills and her hope of opening up her own hotel some day.

Head of hotel relations Peggy Picano-Nacci was born in Indonesia but grew up in France. Despite her tender-aged appearance, she's a veteran of the hotel industry. The past 15 years has seen her work with two-star hotels through to top-notch luxury hotels earning her an unrivalled understanding of what makes a great boutique hotel tick. A former hotel contractor for Miki Travel in the German and Swiss market, ex-sales manager at The Dorchester and an alumnus of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World team where she was responsible for the French, Spanish and Portuguese member hotels, she has made use of Spanish, English and French lingual skills. But our favourite piece of Peggy trivia? Her father was the lead singer of a successful Seventies band. So who better to have on a staff that prides itself on retreats fit for a rock star?

Hotel collections manager Mary Garvin’s earliest travel memory is driving from her native Brooklyn, NY to Florida packed in sardine-tight for 22 hours in a navy-blue Oldsmobile Classic Cruiser among a month’s worth of luggage, her parents and five siblings – imagine the delight at her first airline upgrade. After graduating from McGill University in Montreal, Mary moved to London where she’s lived since, first pulling pints, then organising company travel at interior design firm, Studio Reed, and most recently sniffing out stylish Smith properties across the globe. One day she hopes to sing Johnny Cash’s ‘I’ve been everywhere, man’ and mean every word. Oh…. Amarillo, Tocopilla, Barranquilla, and Padilla!
 
PR AND MARKETING

Head of PR and marketing Aline Keuroghlian has worked in travel for more than 12 years. Stints at Armani and the quirky John Soane Museum helped cultivate a love of stylish things. After university, came several years of guiding high-flying professionals across the Italian countryside for niche tour operator ATG Oxford. This led to her promotion to the role of head of marketing. Now she is putting both her sense and sensibility to good use by working with some of the most beautiful hotels in the world as featured in the Smith collections.

Having been born to Finnish and Dutch parents, PR and marketing executive Sabine Zetteler was always destined to work in an international setting. Her first job was international sales manager at London-based fashion house Belle & Bunty, where she learnt the meaning of hard work, jetting between fashion weeks in Milan, Paris, London and Los Angeles. She then worked for BBC Entertainment & Comedy before emailing her CV to us while on a trip around India. Just a few days after her return, she found herself sitting at a new desk contemplating her next adventure – promoting Mr & Mrs Smith around the world.

MEMBERSHIP

Head of relationship marketing Amber Spencer-Holmes may be a Londoner, but she's got her cosmopolitan credentials, having lived in Sydney and Paris before reading French & English at King’s College London. Before joining Spy, this Mrs TuneSmith (her husband is DJ and Smith columnist, Rob Wood), Amber made waves in the music industry running a number of well-respected record labels. Among the many highly successful music products she has launched are the much-loved 'Back to Mine' and 'Bargrooves' compilation series, and, closer to home, the excellent 'Mr & Mrs Smith: Something for the Weekend' CDs from Seamless Recordings.

Membership and marketing executive Emma Graves fell in love with travelling – particularly to Italy – long before graduating in History of Art from UEA in Norwich. She comes to Mr & Mrs Smith after stints at the Tate, the British Museum and the University of the Arts London; and when not seeking out the best offers from the worlds of shopping and travel for our members, she can be found walking up hills, checking out exhibitions or listening to her favourite bands – usually in a muddy field.  

With a Tongan mother and a Scottish father, member relations executive Alex Melrose has always considered herself to be a citizen of the world. Following the completion of her philosophy degree at Bristol University (where she immersed herself thoroughly in Maimonides and Massive Attack), she set off on her travels – taking in everything from tomato-throwing in Valencia to mud-swimming in New South Wales – before returning to London to start earning her keep. She comes to Mr & Mrs Smith after a spell in recruitment for the creative industries, lured by our promise of a much more customer-focused role.

MUSIC

DJ, journalist and music consultant Rob Wood is the director of Music Concierge, which provides bespoke music services to boutique hotels, venues and brands. He's also responsible for putting together 'Something for the Weekend' compilation albums and writing Mr & Mrs Smith's TuneSmith music page. You can contact him at rob@musicconcierge.co.uk.