Ripple’s founder, Liv Gussing Burgess, is an adventurous and accomplished leader, with a wealth of experience in managing change successfully. She’s now based in London, but in the course of her life and work, Liv has been exposed to a breathtaking variety of cultures and personalities. Her intuitive people skills and warm, approachable style have been shaped by meeting thousands of individuals along her own journey.

Liv graduated from Cornell University’s prestigious Hotel School in 1991, and went on to a diverse career in hospitality management. Her own excellent service skills were honed as a butler at The St Regis in New York City, followed by the Dusit Group in Bangkok, Thailand. She then joined Amanresorts for fourteen years, opening and managing luxury hotels around the world. In addition to setting up resorts in Marrakesh, Jackson Hole, Java and Tahiti, she worked with Aman’s flagship resort, Amanpuri in Phuket, and The Strand in Rangoon. She then spent several years as General Manager of the acclaimed Amandari in Bali, Indonesia. Under Liv’s leadership, the hotel has won numerous awards – including top ranking worldwide in Travel & Leisure’s World’s Best Service Awards, and repeated top-10 rankings in Conde Nast Traveller’s Gold List.

To manage a luxury boutique resort, where perfection is expected but much can go wrong, you need outstanding people skills, tightly synchronised operations, and a clairvoyant-like ability to anticipate needs. But Liv’s greatest success at Amandari was in the sensitive way she integrated the resort with the surrounding village, creating an authentic Balinese experience for guests, but at the same time, preserving and respecting local culture and customs.

If anyone knows about adapting to new environments, Liv does. Born in Sweden, to a Swedish father and Kenyan mother of Indian origin, Liv grew up between Switzerland, Sweden and East Africa. She went to university and worked in the US, before spending much of her career in Asia. She speaks four languages.

Liv’s career in luxury hospitality is grounded by her deeply-rooted empathy for people. Through her father’s career with the International Red Cross, she lived in Somalia and Ethiopia and was exposed to serious global challenges such as poverty, famine and migration, and Liv herself has volunteered in many orphanages. She has a rare ability to connect with anyone and everyone, and her calm confidence puts people at ease immediately. It’s a quality she tries to pass on, when helping companies to manage crisis under pressure.

In 2010, Liv made yet another global transition: she moved from Bali to London, where she now lives with her husband and two young children. In her free time, she enjoys nature and hiking, running and participating in eco-challenges.