Jonathan's personal site
Where in a World of Technology, People Make the Difference.
About Us
- Executive Coach, Business Coach, Mentor & Life Coach
- Business owner
- Some say entrepreneur, I just say I love setting up ventures and seeing a group of people working together for the collective good.
- Loves sports.
Get in Touch
Coaching
Interested in discussing being coached?
Feel free to have drop me a line and have a totally non-commital conversation.
Going through various courses to ensure I can offer only the best in terms of coaching practices, my way of coaching is very much from a collaborative approach. I won’t tell you want to do, but we can go on a journey discussing all options and ways.
I do have a vast experience in setting up, running and indeed closing up a business now!
Mentor
I love seeing anyone setting up a venture and am only too happy to offer any support, guidance and advice.
Although I’ve set up multiple businesses, and so one would argue have ‘been there and done that’, I don’t take this approach with mentoring.
It’s still all about you and your journey and I’ll only be there to support you and offer guidance where I can.
Hang out?
Just want to expand your circle and network?
Fancy a coffee? Or a stronger drink!
I’m very much a people person and always love to chat about life so get in touch!
About me
Got an Idea? We would Love to Chat
A digital-first approach to strategy and creative
Jonathan Geitner
25+ years in business
Initially from a sales background, working my way up from the bottom in hospitality and hotels and fortunate enough to have launched hotels from scratch, seeing the whole operations, sales, revenue, and marketing all working hand in hand for the better good with a blank sheet of paper and writing the rule book as we went along. Given my aptitude for sales and marketing, I soon transitioned into being someone who turned hotels around that were not performing well – whilst winning awards and accolades along the way, including the best Sales & Marketing team (CIM).
One particular hotels growth moved from becoming the worst-performing Marriott hotel in UKEMEA to the best performing hotel.
Hotelier soon turned entrepreneur when ambition and visions got the better of me. Having been involved within the startup scene for a while, whilst always setting up side projects, and thriving on the challenges faced with setting up and running projects and initiatives, the time was right! Now I’m what many would say an entrepreneur. I would just say I like to run businesses, I enjoy working with a great team, and I thoroughly love creating things from scratch and seeing a group of people pull together.
I also enjoy helping other startups on their journey and helping other businesses succeed. So if you’re just looking to talk about the journey, drop me a line.
Also a keen sports enthusiast, having accomplished many sailing races, including that of the Sydney to Hobart, Miami to Jamaica, the Fastnet numerous times coupled with marathons, triathlons and various adventure sports.
A brief history…
Gym Jam
Founder & CEO
April 2020 – present day
Gym Jam is a fitness app for those who are tired of fitness apps. We help you cultivate better, fitter habits that stick.
Check out gymjam.app
Chiswick Festival
Co-founder
April 2020 – present day
A local festival in between the two lockdowns that will continue and become an annual event. Comedy, music, food and drink over 21 nights at Chiswick House.
In just 4 weeks we organised 21 nights of events – acts included Dara Ó Briain, Russell Kane, Joel Dommett, Simon Brodkin & Tom Allen to Key Note speakers like Jeremy Vine through to amazing musicians and incredible classical performers, who’ve performed with the likes of Clean Bandit, Eminem, 50 Cent, Ed Sheeran, Bring Me The Horizon, Maren Morris, Alison Moyet, Dermot Kennedy, Rhys Lewis, Marc Almond and Tom Chaplin to name just a few.
Check out chiswickfestival.com
Rough Runner
CEO & Co-founder
Feb 2013 – Nov 2020
An obstacle course event like no other.
We organised and executed over 69 events with over 150,000 people attending. Usually attracting some 8,000 participants and some 3,000 spectators to each event over a weekend.
Unforunately we had to put the business into Administration due to Covid-19.
Check out roughrunner.com
Consultant
Director
Dec 2009 – Feb 2013
Supported business owners within the hotel sector set up their businesses from scratch and get the businesses moving.
I successfully helped numerous small boutique luxury hotels open across London, Milan, Rome and Scilly.
Launch48
Director
Jan 2009 – April 2010
A fun and experiential event, which brought together participants from different backgrounds and levels of experience in the web industry to think/plan/develop and launch one or multiple web apps in one weekend. It’s an entrepreneurial event designed to engage all participants while offering the opportunity to learn and meet new people.
We successfully were sponsored by PayPal, 02 amongst a few others.
Marriott International
Director of Sales and Marketing
Feb 2002 – Dec 2009
Based initially the London Marriott Hotel Regents Park Marriott for just short of a year to help write, deliver & implement a Sales and Marketing Plan to help the hotel improve its financial position and to reach budget. This was successfully implemented we won various new contracts, particularly outstanding was 3 new airline crew contracts where the business was moved from already existing contracted hotels whose location was superior to what we offered.
Following this, I was asked to go to the London Marriott Hotel County Hall where the business had been performing very poorly. Being the flagship Marriott in London at the time the business was then the worst performing Marriott in the UKIEMA and had seen year on year revenues simply decline.
My role was to understand, write and deliver an effective business plan to turn the business around. We did a full business re-positioning on the hotel, re-wrote all the business, sales and marketing plans and implemented them.. These plans moved the business around from a £12m turnover to a £19.4m turnover business in just under 3 years during the recession ended Dec 09. The Marriott County Hall also finished in Dec 2009 with the highest RevPar for every Marriott in the UK and Ireland. Thus the hotel was transformed from the worst performing Marriott in the UK to the best performing Marriott during a recession.
The Savoy Group
Sales and Marketing
Jan 1998 – Feb 2002
The Savoy Group – a collection of the finest luxury hotels in London, including The Savoy, Claridge’s, The Berkeley, The Connaught and The Lygon Arms.
Since the team was established and were responsible for existing accounts, I was brought on to look into new markets, and drive “new” sales through effective marketing, sales and negotiations to a new audience.
Establishing the route planner of what was needed, through the writing of an effective sales and marketing plan, I drove £4m in the second year through new business.
From this point I also managed many of the top key accounts for the collection to maintain and grow business performance so as to meet budgets agreed.
London Marriott Heathrow Hotel
Sales and Marketing
Feb 1994 – Jan 1998
Responsible for the opening of the hotel, for the development of the businesses within the immediate area to include the Airport and all the airlines, encompassing negotiations of crew contracts and all the large corporate businesses around Heathrow as far as Slough’s business parks.
Highly successful opening, becoming the most successful Marriott Hotel at the time within the UKI collection and winning various accolades to include the best sales team in the UK as dictated by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, beating IBM, British Gas and Yellow Pages sales teams (no other hotel even got in!).