Chairman Steven Ferry was born and raised in Southern England, where he attended private schools and Art College. He worked both in the hospitality industry and in private service in England during the 1980s before training as a butler in England and then working as one in the United States. In the early 1990s, he established the International Guild of Traditional Butlers and wrote the basic manual on how to butle. By the mid-1990s, he had left private service to focus on his writing and consulting career.

Drawing on his early years as an educator in England, he published three textbooks for the profession: “The British Butlers’ Bible,” “Butlers and Household Managers, 21st Century Professionals,” and “Hotel Butlers, the Great Service Differentiators” and began to train butlers in private households and consult their employers about their domestic needs, as well as being a visiting professor at The International Butler Academy. He subsequently broadened his focus to improve on service standards using the butler model, by providing training and consulting to the hospitality industry, founding the International Institute of Modern Butlers in 2004.

 In 2006, he introduced rating standards to the industry for butlers in hotels. In 2007, he introduced the spa butler as a resource for hotels and resorts with spas, to assist them in bringing about the ultimate spa experience for guests. In the same year, he introduced the concept of the Guest from Hell and helped establish the HotelSafeguard program for hotels. The campaign then widened further to include corporations and all service industries. In 2016, his definitive two-volume series, Serving The Wealthy, was published and he began to focus on establishing butler training programs as “force multipliers” within universities and trade schools in key countries of Asia.

He is currently on the Editorial Board of Hotel Business Review with 50 articles published there and in a variety of other industry trade magazines. He has lectured at a number of venues, including Harvard and Moscow universities, and in 2018, established DNA Quality Assurance with two industry leaders to raise service standards in hotels asnd resorts around the world, including introducing butler service standards for the hundreds of 5* hotels and resorts around the world that offer the service.

As Chairman of the Board of the International Institute of Modern Butlers, he oversees the operations of its offices and trainers around the world and personally trains butlers and other service professionals around the world.

Prior to working in the hospitality profession, Steven was a professor of education and worked in the non-profit sector in various capacities. He has over 20 books published, as well as hundreds of articles & photographs for major US publishers and corporations.

Industry Books
The British Butlers’ Bible, Mansion Publishing, 2001
Butlers and Household Managers, 21st Century Professionals, Imprint Books, 2002
Hotel Butlers, The Great Service Differentiators, Booksurge Publishing, 2004
Serving The Wealthy, Volume I, CreateSpace, 2016
Serving The Wealthy, Volume II, CreateSpace, 2016

Professional Affiliations
Founder, International Guild of Traditional Butlers, 1992
Executive Member, International Guild of Professional Butlers (past)
Founder, The International Institute of Modern Butlers
Visiting Professor, The International Butler Academy (past)
Editorial Board, Hotel Business Magazine