Barry Sternlicht

Barry Sternlicht founded Starwood Capital Group in 1991 and built it into one of the world's largest real estate private equity firms. He became chairman of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide (initially through a hostile takeover) and created the W Hotels brand — a boutique lifestyle hotel concept that fundamentally changed how upscale hotels thought about design and brand identity. He separated from Starwood Hotels in 2005, continuing to build Starwood Capital as a pure real estate investment vehicle. Starwood Capital manages over $115 billion in real estate assets across residential, hospitality, commercial, and mortgage debt strategies. Sternlicht is known for innovative thinking about real estate products and his willingness to make contrarian investments when conventional wisdom is pessimistic about a sector.