Nick Jones, Founder and CEO at Soho House
Nick Jones is the Founder and CEO of Soho House, and Director of the Board of the Membership Collective Group [MCG], a global membership platform of physical and digital spaces, which Soho House sits at the heart of.
Nick opened the first Soho House in 1995 and since then the company has grown to include 35 Houses around the world, members-only workspaces called Soho Works, Soho Home – an interiors and lifestyle retail brand – and a number of cinemas and restaurants.
MCG remains the only company to have scaled a private membership network with a global presence.
- Tell us a little bit about your business…
Soho House is a home-away-from-home for our members all over the world. We are a collection of 35 Houses where our diverse membership can connect, grow, have fun, and make an impact. From the beginning, and throughout our 27 year history, our members have always been at the heart of everything we do
We are part of the Membership Collective Group, or MCG for short, which includes Soho Works, The Ned in London, Scorpios Beach Club in Mykonos, and our interiors and lifestyle retail brand, Soho Home.
2. How did you get into the industry?
When I left school at 17, my careers master said: “It doesn’t look like you’ve got much hope anywhere apart from catering.” So, I joined the Trusthouse Forte management course, working first in London and then in Paris as a chef.
In the early ‘90s I was running a restaurant called Café Boheme on Greek Street in Soho, when the landlord offered me the three floors above it. At the time, membership clubs were very male dominated – places where I didn’t want to hang out – with the exception of the nearby Groucho, which I still have immense respect for.
I called it Soho House quite simply as it was a former house in Soho.
3. What are the biggest opportunities and challenges in your industry?
There is so much opportunity for Soho House to grow and give our members access to new spaces, new communities, new content and new experiences. I’m really excited at the thought of one day opening a House in South America, Africa and Australia, and expanding in Asia, as well as developing our digital membership.
As with others in our industry, staff shortages are a real challenge at the moment but we are being proactive and creative in how we attract and recruit great talent. We’re looking for people in the North to work with us before we open Houses in cities like Manchester, and we’ve launched Soho Flex which offers shift work for people with all levels of hospitality who want to balance work with a flexible lifestyle.
4. How would you describe your leadership style?
Simplicity is key. I’ve always believed that if you cant make things easy for people to understand, you are much less likely to succeed.
I prefer speaking and meeting people in person; I find things get done more efficiently and new ideas come through conversation, compared to emails and texts. My team know that if they have to present something to me, it has to be on one piece of paper.
5. How do you get the most out of the people who work for you?
It’s important to create an atmosphere and space where people encourage each other to flourish. I want to give our teams the space and opportunity to share and run with ideas, no matter how bold.
6. What are the most crucial elements to your business running smoothly and being successful?
Everything we do is about our members. For the last 27 years, all I’ve thought about is how to give them the best possible experience. As we look to the future, we will continue to respond and adapt to shifting lifestyle trends and needs of our diverse membership base. It’s how we stay relevant and remain an ever-evolving part of the cultural landscape.
From the first founding members of 40 Greek Street to now over 155,000 members across MCG globally, our members have remained incredibly loyal for which I am truly grateful.
7. How has the past 12 months been for you?
As time passes and we move on from the pandemic, it’s easy to forget how difficult things were for everyone last year. It was certainly one of the most challenging times for the hospitality and travel industry. On average our Houses only operated at 40% capacity and we were experiencing inflationary pressures in everything from food and energy prices to wages, as well as staffing shortages.
Looking back, it’s amazing to think that despite all this we opened six new Soho Houses in four countries and two Soho Home Studios in London and New York, with more people than ever before applying for membership. The size of our waitlist reached an all-time high of over 70,000.
We also overhauled the SH.App to make it more useful to members and if that wasn’t enough, we took the company public on the New York Stock Exchange at a time when many hospitality-focused businesses were still in a fight for survival.
We certainly didn’t take our foot off the pedal and instead focused all of our teams to deliver and make sure that we were set up for success in 2022.
8. What will the next 12 months look like for your business?
2022 will be an exciting year for Soho House and The Ned, giving all our members even more value for their membership.
We’ve already opened new Soho Houses in Brighton, West Hollywood and Nashville, with six more still to come including Mexico City, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Bangkok. Plus, this year marks the long-awaited return of some of our most popular member events including House Festival in London, which we will also host in upstate New York for the first time, and our pop-up House at Coachella last month.
We’re also bringing The Ned to New York in the summer, the first one outside of London.
9. What are the highlights of your career so far?
When I opened Soho House in Greek Street back in 1995, I never imagined I would open another one. The fact that we now have 35 Houses globally, which has been led by the loyalty and enthusiasm that our members have shown us, makes me feel warm inside.
10. What’s the biggest business mistake that you’ve learnt from?
My first three restaurants didn’t work. You learn a lot through failure. Over The Top, where Café Boheme[in Soho] is now, was empty at lunchtime and I would be thinking, ‘Why is nobody in here?’ Then I realised the decor was awful and the food was rubbish. Customers are pretty clever, they often see these things quicker than you do.
11. What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve been given?
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, that’s how you learn . If there’s nine reasons not to do something and one reason to do it, I’ll always do it. You have to believe in yourself and be optimistic.
