Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English businessman Ben Elliot.
Last updated on November 20, 2024.
Benjamin William Elliot is a British businessman and fund-raiser for the Conservative Party who has served as Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party since July 2019 alongside James Cleverly (2019–2020), Amanda Milling (2020–2021), Oliver Dowden (2021–2022), and Andrew Stephenson (2022–present). In 2018, Elliot was appointed by Michael Gove, the secretary of state for the environment, as the UK government's first Food Surplus and Waste Champion. Elliot is the co-founder of the Quintessentially Group, a global luxury concierge service, and the co-founder of Hawthorn Advisors, a communications consultancy based in London.
Buenos Aires is easily one of the most stylish cities in the world with its eclectic collection of neighborhoods, each with its own unique charm.
It's not marriage that I crave. Many of my friends who have married are pretty miserable. Within a year and a half, most of them are either unhappy or divorced.
In my heart and soul, I am a West Country man, and ideally, my weekends are spent there.
My obsession with eating out partly comes from having spent 10 long years at English boarding schools in the 1980s, where food was pretty low on the list.
My father instilled in me an attitude that you couldn't really enjoy yourself unless you had done something to deserve it. So, my childhood was spent working on farms or local shops or, when I got older, in banks.
I've always been fascinated by India and its color and vibrancy. I worked in Madhya Pradesh in the Kanha National Game reserve before university, and it is probably the most intoxicating country I have ever visited.
I mainly read histories and biographies, but I'm also a big fan of Graham Swift and Thomas Hardy.
I don't believe that saying things because you feel they are what people want to hear is the right way to be in any part of your life.
I'm a creature of habit and tend to favour small, traditional English businesses.
When you think about the word 'quintessentially', it's about trying to get to the very essence of something.
I have an issue with others ordering for me, and I spend far too long haranguing people that my choices are the best. I apologize for the amount of conversations I have ruined with this attitude.
In summer, my Sundays are often taken up with cricket. I play with a bunch of other over-competitive and overenthusiastic guys who I have known for a very long time.
I think people might say I'm a bit of a sucker for punishment.
In the same way I am addicted to puddings - the sweeter the better - I have become addicted to the daily routines my Pilates and Gyrotonic guru, Nada, puts me through.
What goes around comes around in business, and it's better to help people out rather than bill them every time you speak to them.
I eat out three times a day most days of the year. This is no big deal to most New Yorkers, and it is not something I am necessarily proud of - it's simply the nature of my itinerant life.
If people don't feel they've got your attention, you're not going to succeed.
When I lived in New York, I discovered these Russian & Turkish Baths in East 10th Street. Great for a platza treatment - plus, you'll run into the world and his wife there.
Fastidious attention to detail makes the difference between an OK service and first class service.
For me, life is not about gold taps and marble all over the place.
With offices in 64 cities around the world, it is sometimes a challenge to ensure that I've got my finger on the pulse with every one, everywhere. Staying in touch means early rising for calls with China and Japan, and late calls with the U.S.
'Concierge' comes from the Latin for 'slave.'
Since childhood, I have been a cricket fanatic.
I'm not going to complain to New Yorkers about working too hard.
I have to be passionate about everything I do.
There are a lot of laws from Europe about employing people which are absolute nonsense.
I studied politics and economics at Bristol, and people always assumed that I'd go into politics or a non-government organisation when I left. I might well do this later on. I'd love to represent a West Country seat in the House of Commons.
A lot of my work is about developing relationships with corporate partners such as Jaguar and Diageo.
The way I choose to live my own life rates time and space as real luxuries.
For me, a stay at the Uma Paro with Pilates every morning is a perfect escape.
When the truth does not get printed, damage is done.
Since I travel to the four corners of this planet for work, I don't need sun holidays or that kind of thing.
Now if I don't take exercise I feel a bit frazzled.
Art is the ultimate luxury good, but one that can make you think, give a you a blast of beauty and enhance your life. Even if the work's made of plasticine.
I definitely like sorting stuff out, and I have the enthusiasm to try and help.
A quintessential experience is to raft the Rio Grande through the Blue Mountains, stopping off at waterfalls and having picnics of barbecued fish.
Once you're involved in a business, it's part of what you do. It's the way you are.
I don't set out to be connected. My business has allowed me to meet lots of interesting people, some of whom have become friends; but you can't force it. This terrible word - 'networking' - I really hate.
I knew Quintessentially was a success when my father, who does a lot of business in Beirut, introduced himself to somebody and they said, 'Oh, do you know Ben Elliot? I'd really like to meet him.' I remember him ringing me up, really annoyed.