S17 E07: Stuart McNeill, Founder and CEO of Knightsbridge Circle

[Music] You're listening to the luxury item, the podcast on the business of luxury and the people and companies that are shaping the future of the luxury industry. Here's your host, Scott Kerr. My guest on the luxury item is Stuart McNeil, founder and CEO of Night's Bridge Circle, one of the most exclusive luxury concierge in lifestyle management firms in the world. Night's Bridge Circle was built around a simple idea that true luxury is not just access but anticipation, discretion and personal service at the highest level. Night's Bridge Circle acts as an extension of the private office, handling everything from travel and hospitality to once in a lifetime experiences. With dedicated personal managers serving only a handful of carefully selected members each. Still small, independent and privately owned, Night's Bridge Circle operates across New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Boston, London, Amsterdam and Dubai. In a luxury market increasingly shaped by automation and scale, Night's Bridge Circle represents something more intimate, human relationships, impossible requests and the quiet art of making life feel effortless. Before launching Night's Bridge Circle in 2012, Stuart McNeil was private clients' partnership manager at Read and McKay and led the launch of American Express's Centurion Card Elite Service, giving him deep insight into the expectations and behaviors of ultra-high-net worth clients. Welcome to the luxury item, Stuart. Scott, it's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you so much for joining me. You founded Night's Bridge Circle in 2012 and it's widely regarded as the most exclusive personal luxury concierge service. Before launching Night's Bridge Circle, you helped launch the Centurion Card for American Express and later helped launch AMEX's Centurion Elite Tier. It's an invitation only service for the very highest spending card members. Your experience at Centurion basically handed you the clientele, the contacts and the playbook to launch Night's Bridge Circle. So from your inside vantage point, where did you see the gap in the market? What did you feel needed to be corrected? Yeah, well, first of all, I wouldn't say, "American Express handed me the clientele." It was very hard. Fourteen years ago, working those connections to make an impressive client base. So I started my career 2004 with American Express Centurion, down in Brighton, the European Headquarters. For them. And in 2010, there was an opportunity to launch the Elite Tier, which was focusing on the top 50 card members that could be CEO, Royalty, Celebrity and offering them in heart service. And it went very well. And when you work for a large corporation like AMEX, when something goes well, generally they want to roll it out to way too many people. So I got pulled into the VP's office and they said, "Right, we're now going to do this for thousands of people around the world." And I said, "No, the reason this is doing so well is because it's niche. There's always a table at the best restaurant. There's always a way of fast-tracking somebody into the most exclusive private members club." And obviously I lost the battle and that's where Night's Bridge Circle was founded. And your day-to-day at AMEX Centurion was handling of ultra-high-knit, worth clients' complex travel and lifestyle and access to requests worldwide. What did you learn about how the ultra-wealthy actually experienced time versus everyone else? They want, most of them are still very down to earth. You get the occasional one who is not. But they work very hard in their lives, most of them, and they want a seamless experience. So things like us sending their luggage the day before, they're due to arrive somewhere. So when they arrive at the villa or the hotel, their clothing has been pressed, is in the wardrobe. So it hasn't been lost on route and their vacation or business trip gets off to the start that they expect. Another thing that we've seen a lot of in the last 10 years is what we call boots on the ground. And we have clients who, we had a family who went to Meeknos and they are, they're a lovely family down to earth but very successful and just hate these awkward moments like arriving at a restaurant to be told that the table before them is still eating and they'll have to go to the bar. There's no air conditioning, they're sweating and they just want this level of service that we can deliver where somebody makes their lives their special time. They've got lots of money and not enough time to spend with their loved ones. So nights pretty circle, make sure it's a seamless experience. One other thing we were doing was the Paris Olympics and we were taking our members to each event. We were checking in advance for road closures. When we got to the venue, we were scanning their tickets and that that's the level that we've we've taken it to. Were there any behavioral patterns you noticed consistently across clients at that wealth level that actually surprised you? Nothing surprises many more but everybody has extremely, even if they say they don't, they have extremely high expectations and they're not the kind of people that would accept second best. So we have to be on our toes at all times making sure that we we're delivering for every request. So you leave American Express Centurion with your experience with dealing with the highly specific and personal requests of a very small group of clients to launch nights bridge circle. What was the actual business model on day one? Back in 2012 the business model isn't far away from where it is today so each of my staff looked after five members each and the membership back then it was $25,000 per member per year. Moving to today the model is four members to each personal manager so we we felt that five was just too much that the members were very engaged and we wanted to make it even more exclusive. So it's it's four to one the membership today has has gone up a fair bit in 14 years so it's it's $55,000 per member per year and we also a couple of years go we introduced a joining fee which is a one off $25,000. How do you get your first members and like what did you promise them I would imagine you had all these names or at least some of these names from American Express Centurion. So you knew who had the money and my mind I would be the first place I would go so how did you first get your you know your first. I'm still good friends with American Express and actually they I introduced people still to the centering cup because we don't see them as as a competitor so rather than taking their clients I like to think that we are partners. Actually back it back in 2012 I did I did so I was quite clever I moved into philanthropy and I I worked with the out and John AIDS foundation and every year out and John and David have a party at their house in Windsor in the UK right and you pay. It's a fairly big ticket price to attend and one of the so they do an auction and what they were doing at the time was a super brand's box and in this super brand's box there were gifts from well nice for a circle we gave an annual membership there was the every house so house membership in there which back in 2012 so the other house was was far more difficult to get into and there was also the latest Apple gadgets so the the latest iPhone or whatever so this super brand's box was worth over £100,000 at the time and they were auctioning them for £30,000. So I was slightly concerned that too many people would contact us and and redeem their complimentary annual membership but we had we had the right number and these people joined us it's certainly our target audience and they were recommending their friends after their experience so that was one of the best decisions I ever made to go ahead with the with the charitable donation. So when you came over this membership charge at launch how did you know what the market would bear. Well it was it was what I set up at night at American Express so we were we were around the same price when we launched the Centurion Elite here so they were asked the the car members of Alex were asked to pay about another $24,000 a year for this enhanced service. So as I said I I walked out the door in 2012 and mirrored what I'd set up in 2010 and and it just grew from there. So let's run down some of the numbers I think you mentioned a couple before rough number of members you have globally the cap on membership membership fees staff the membership ratio that type of thing. Yeah, we can't have 100 members globally. Half of those are in North America. My team are based in New York, Miami, Boston, LA, and then this side of the pond in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Singapore. When I set the company up, I said 500 global members would be the end game, but now I know that was way too many. It's around 250 night's per circle members is where we will close the doors. I want to talk a little bit about your business model. You said your membership fee covers your operating costs to "keeping the lights on" while your profit comes from member activity, you know travel, experiences, procurement, etc. So to drive revenue and profitability, you must anticipate member needs rather than waiting for requests. What kinds of ideas and opportunities do you go to with members to keep them engaged and your revenue stream flowing? We offer the most exclusive proactive service, and for example, if it's somebody's wedding anniversary, with some of the companies, some of the concierge companies out there, they're very reactive and it's up to the member to send the request, which generally given how busy these people are, it's the day before and they say, "Oh dear, can you get me a two-mission start restaurant tomorrow evening for my anniversary?" Now, what you'll get with night's per circle is probably about six weeks before the occasion. Your personal manager will contact you and say, "Just wanted to remind you it's your wedding anniversary and here are some ideas." For example, it's November, it's the white truffle hunting season in Northern Italy. Why don't we do something romantic and something cool around that? We do the same with Valentine's Day. We're always giving our members these amazing experiences to choose from and we do it in ample time, so we're still able to deliver. So how well do you get to know them personally, to have that kind of foresight to come up with these ideas? Do you get to know them in a more intimate way if you will beyond just what those stats are when they join? Absolutely. We pride ourselves on face to face. I was just last week, I was in Palm Beach and Miami seeing our families. We have regular members events. The next one is on the Belmont, British Pullman, which is taking our members out of London. There's a new carriage called Celia, which Basileman has designed. We've hired that next week. We've hired the Polo Bar in New York for October, which is a hotspot right now. I think it's easier to escape from Alcatraz than get a table at Polo Bar, so our members will be very happy to join us there. I call Knights British Circle a community. Last year, we had a members event at a Client's House. It was beautiful and one of our other members owns hotels and private members clubs. He sent his mixologists and his chefs to do the catapas. We brought in the musician and the security. It was a wonderful event. UKtor Heavily, I don't know, about 95% of the members to sent a millionaires, individuals with a hundred million dollars plus in liquid, investable assets, with an average member net worth of eight hundred million dollars. The evidence continues to build that the ultra wealthy have been disengaging from traditional luxury goods. There, Ms. Bag, Louis Vuitton, Monogram, or Rolex, or Marinor have been losing their power as exclusivity signals for the truly wealthy. They've been moving toward things that simply cannot be replicated somewhere harder to follow by everyone else. Are you seeing that shift in what your members want from you? Yes, I think the Covid pandemic was the eye-opener for me. People sat at home and said, "I'm sat here with 12 handbags and however many timepieces." Depending on how your vision on life is, perhaps you might feel you only live once and you've got to really enjoy this way you're in good health. So we have a lot. So the last six, five, six years it's all been about having a Michelin-star chef come to the house and cook dinner, having an a-list singer, do a party, a family celebration. We're working very closely with the Vatican and we're doing the Pope's Christmas concert in Vatican in December. We work closely with Royal Family and Andrea Boccelli. We do a party at his house every summer. So yeah, I completely agree with you. We still get requests for timepieces, for handbags, for luxury items, but the actual experiences are hugely on the up. What's the split between inherited wealth and self-made wealth among your members? And does that affect what they want from you? The most of our members are self-made. I'd say probably 75%. I don't really see a difference between what they want. If they've inherited or if they've made it, they still want to eat at the best places. They want to sleep at the best places. One thing that's been interesting in the last few years is the average age of our member. In the last 10 years, it's come down from 50 years old to 42 years old. This is people being involved in tech and in cryptocurrency. We've also got some sports stars. Our youngest member is 22 and our oldest member is 89. So there's a lot of different people in there. And you operate across the UK, Europe, the US, and the Middle East and beyond. North America is your fastest growing market. The US has seen an explosion of centimillionaires in the last 10 years driven by the high performance of the US financial markets. Is that what's driving your North America growth? It is. Yes. I see a lot of competition coming into the market. I see a huge amount in what I call the lower end of the market where you have the core centers and the apps. I think in North America there's probably four or five competitors for Knights Recycle. But the whole concierge, the access piece is becoming more difficult because for example, in New York, there are, let's say, 10 locations, 10 restaurants that people really want. And the venues receive 5000 requests a day for a table there. So it's challenging, but we do our best. What is your story in North America when you deal with these restaurants on why you're the better option as a partner? Well, they like to see these restaurants want to have well-behaved people who, you know, the bills, they like to see a fairly healthy bill at the end of the night. So when they see a Knights Recycle member, when we call them and talk about the bio of the person we'd like to send along, they're usually very happy to welcome them. To American members, European members and Middle Eastern members pretty much want the same things, are there requests and the ideas your teams proactively go to members with more culturally distinct? The requests are pretty, as I said earlier, they are, they want the same kind of things. The difference is that the Middle Eastern market, for example, is extremely last minute. So we might get a call on the day, a few hours before saying, "Please can you get me a table for eight at this restaurant this evening?" And yeah, the Middle Eastern, there they are larger groups of people traveling, the whole family, friends, whereas with the North Americans and the Europeans, usually it's smaller groups and North Americans will usually plan pretty well in advance, which makes it easier for us. So as you're building out your footprint, what does your market expansion strategy look like in the next year? We'll continue with North America. The West Coast is somewhere that we feel that there's a lot more we can do. We're getting a lot of inquiries from Singapore. That's somewhere that we haven't gone too much into. We're getting so many requests from Europe and North America that we don't want to put our attention all around the world. So there's opportunities. The Middle East has been quiet since the end of February, for reasons we all know. So that will hopefully come back later this year. We only accept two members every month. So to get to our end game, it's probably going to take about six years for a nice piece of circle to be full up. But the most important thing for us is that we are attracting the right people and we're able to do a great job for them. So when you say Are they replacing too or they're additive? I don't like the word replacing. We are renewal. We're in the 90% for retention. It's just because we build such a personal relationship, personal proactive relationship with them. We become an extension of their family, their office. We're very fortunate that not many people leave us. That's the most important thing for us is that we keep our great client base in place. Then there is an opportunity to accept two new members every month. We're getting a lot more inquiries than two a month. We have to be very selective who we say yes to. You just said you maintain high 90s renewal rates consistently. When a business where the product is essentially trust and access, what destroys a client relationship and what are the mistakes that could cost you a member? What destroys a relationship is a mistake. We're investing in AI, not front of house because I will never take anything away from the personal service that we're delivering. But we are intelligently implementing AI in the back office because human mistakes do happen. It's life. But we're putting extra layers of care in place to make sure they don't happen. There was a New York Times piece that reported Night's Bridge Circle works with Sotheby's Formula One, Aston Martin, to offer members exclusive access and hard to find items. What does access actually look like in practice for those? Is it paddock access, factory visits or something else entirely? We work with many brands around the world and you mentioned Sotheby's. We would work with them for our members that are attending art basil. We would have the invitations to the most exclusive dinner. We're in inter-art. They'll meet the right people and build those relationships. Another big thing that we do is it's fashion and fashion weeks. We just had a client in Paris. We phoned the managing director of Givenchy and we got them complimentary tickets to the front row at the fashion show, then the VIP dinner afterwards. Formula One, of course we can do the paddock passes, but we can take it one level further. We can have a whole weekend with the team of their choice. Having a coffee with the drivers, really asking them questions on a one-to-one basis. There are a few luxury concierge firms that have been cautionary tales. Quintessentially is probably the clearest case study. Quintessentially was founded in 1999 by Sir Ben Elliott, the nephew of Queen Camilla. It became the world's largest luxury concierge firm with 60+ offices, Liberty Clientel, or Alaxas. The rapid expansion that built its reputation may have also caused its decline. Quintessentially scaled to 60+ offices and thousands of members. And in doing so, the seamlessness that justified the fee evaporated. The product essentially became just ordinary and nearly fell apart. Was holding firm night's bridge circle at around 120 members globally, a deliberate strategic choice informed by watching companies like Quintessentially's trajectory? Well, first of all, Ben and the co-founders 25 years ago, or whenever it was, well, the pioneers of this industry and they really paved the way. So, respect to them. But as you said, it got very big. And when I founded Nice Recycle, I was very clear, we won't be tearing this service. We won't have an entry level, medium level, elite level. It's one level and it's proactive. It's face to face. We are. We've got the customer app. We've got the AI. But it's. My team are actually gold to be face to face with their clients every few months. So that's the level that we're doing. And as I said, keeping the member numbers to 250 full stop, that allows us to keep opening the doors and delivering the service. So you're talking about AI a few times in this conversation. How are you using AI in night's bridge? So I'll give you an honest example. Last end of last year, we had a client arriving in Singapore. You have to do an arrival form. And I mentioned human mistakes earlier. We. Doing the form, my colleague had put the month of birth from the past, went into the form as November and the month of birth was October. So when the client arrived in Singapore, they had to queue to have the error sorted. So if we had. Back then, if we had invested in the AI we do now, that wouldn't have happened. So you have to learn by these mistakes to get better. And I'm embracing it. It can do. It can save my team a lot of time. Time that should be spent with. Having a coffee with their clients, rather than doing admin chores behind the scenes. So a couple of years ago, you said an interview. You believe you're halfway through the night's bridge circle journey. So what does the finished version actually look like in your mind? The finished inversion is 250 global members. We will be operating one in, one out, at that time. I love my job. I love every week. I'm somewhere else meeting our members. They give me incredible feedback regarding their personal managers. I'm still fairly young. I'm 43 years old. I took a vacation in February and I switched my phone off for the first time in 10 years. And the first four days I was very tired to sleeping. And then it got to day five. And I said to my wife, my God, this is like retirement. I'm not ready for this. So I guess to answer your question in six years when night's bridge circle is one in one out, I would love to continue and get better. So Stuart, my final question is the luxury item question, which I ask all my guests. So if you were stranded on a deserted island and you could only have one single luxury item with you on that deserted island, what would that luxury item be? It can't be any form of air, water transportation to get you off that island. Or anything that requires mobile service to call anybody at night's bridge circle to get you off that island. It's just you on this lonely island, but you have one luxury item with you. What would that be? Okay, so I'll have to keep this clean. Probably, that's a first. Yeah, this is probably not the most exciting answer you've ever had, but a bottle of Brunello de Montecchino and a glass for one would be fantastic for me. I love Italian red. Why did you pick that? I said, I had to keep it clean. After this, after this podcast, I'll tell you the other offer. That'll be in the bonus episode that I'm not going to tell you about. Stuart McMeill, founder and CEO of Night's Bridge Circle. Thank you so much for joining me on the luxury item. Thanks for your time, Scott. That's it for this episode of the luxury item podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this useful and entertaining, I would be really grateful if you can share it with a friend or colleague. I love it if you subscribe so you never miss an episode. And while you're there, be sure to rate and review us on Apple podcasts. It really helps other listeners find us. The luxury item podcast is a production of Silver Tone Consulting. I'm your host, Scott Kerr. Until next time.