Patrick Dempsey
Managing Director, Whitbread Hotels & Restaurants
Patrick began his career with Forte Hotels in 1980 and graduated from Shannon College of Hotel Management in 1981. Patrick held a number of senior positions including Managing Director of Forte's London Hotels' division, and went on to become Managing Director of Posthouse Hotels and was instrumental in successfully repositioning the Posthouse estate as the leading mid-market hotel group. Posthouse was ultimately sold to Bass (now IHG).
From August 2001 to August 2003 Patrick worked with Compass Group
UK & Ireland where he was Chief Executive of Restaurant Associates UK.
He joined Macdonald Hotels as Chief Executive Officer in August 2003.
In September 2004, Patrick joined the Whitbread Hotel Company as Managing Director, responsible for the Marriott brand in the UK. In May 2005, following the sale of Marriott hotels Patrick looked at the opportunities to take Premier Inn into International markets. In September 2005 he was then appointed as Managing Director for Premier Inn, who are now the UK's largest hotel chain operating over 575 hotels c.40,000 rooms in the budget sector, and plan to continue to grow their UK portfolio to 55,000 rooms over the next five years.
In April 2006 Premier Inn signed their first International agreement in a joint venture with Emirates to develop budget hotels in the Gulf Region. The first hotel successfully opened with 308 rooms in April 2008 at the Dubai Investment Park. It is also planned for another 3 hotels to open in Dubai during 2009, which will give a total of 964 rooms across the 4 sites.
In August 2007 Premier Inn also announced that they had entered into a joint venture agreement with Emaar-MGF, India's leading real estate developer, to develop Premier Inn across India. The first, one being built is in Bangalore and is scheduled to open in December 2009, with 105 rooms, followed by a second site in Delhi.
In February 2008 it was announced by Whitbread that Premier Inn and the Restaurants Division (c.400 restaurants), encompassing Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Table Table and Taybarns would merge to form Whitbread Hotels & Restaurants, of which Patrick was appointed Managing Director.
In September/October 2009 Patrick attended and successfully completed the Advanced Management Programme at Harvard Business School in Boston.
In January 2009 Patrick was appointed as an Executive Director and joined the Whitbread PLC main Board.
Patrick is married with three children, Henry, Jack & Tara, and lives, with his wife Allison, in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England.
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