Co-Founded by Alex Cheatle and his brother Andrew Long in 1998 in the spare room of their shared London flat, lifestyle concierge Ten Lifestyle Group now has over two million wealthy members globally. The service is made possible by a team of expert Lifestyle Managers based in over 20 cities around the world who provide Ten's members with access to a closed user-group digital platform on which they can reserve tables and tickets that would otherwise be unbookable, secure hotel upgrades and explore other luxury brands. Here, Ten's Chief Executive Officer, Alex Cheatle, tells us a bit more about his brand...
Walpole: What is 'lifestyle concierge' and who do you serve?
Alex Cheatle: Ten’s mission has always been to become one of the most trusted services in our members' lives. We do that by being the best place in the world to organise travel, entertainment, eating out and brand introductions for our members. We’ve spent 25 years mastering this new craft of ‘lifestyle management’.
We have wonderful private members, but we are also proud to work with the leading private banks who ask us to serve their top customers, including Coutts and NatWest Private Banking in the UK, HSBC Jade in Hong Kong, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley in the Americas and Royal Bank of Canada and Scotia in Canada. We also work with many of the top banks in China including Bank of China, China Merchants Bank and ICBC), Japan, the Middle East, Latin America, Switzerland, Scandinavia and Australia.
At any one time we have hundreds of thousands of active members, luxury consumers, who use us to create memories, save time and live the life that they aspire to.
How does Ten work with other luxury brands?
We have always delivered special access and improved experiences in dining, travel and entertainment, via the phone, email and chat. In recent years we invested tens of millions of pounds – and huge amounts of love and tears – to build a superb digital platform that our members use to browse and read superb content, and attend member-only virtual events. The digital channel has allowed us to introduce our members to the best luxury brands for them, based on their location, preferences and profile.
Our service is highly personalised so we expect to introduce a young Chinese visitor to London to different brands, in different ways, than an older member who lives in St John’s Wood. Our guides and articles are written by content team of over 50 superb writers and editors, across multiple languages, and managed by our Global Content Editor, Anthony Thornton (the ex-Digital Editor of *Wallpaper).
Why does your brand represent the very best in British luxury?
For me, luxury starts with product quality. Luxury is not a badge that announces that the owner is wealthy – that’s just bling and doesn’t have lasting value. Ten’s journey has been all about defining a whole new type of service and then designing it, such that we can deliver consistent excellence; and always with an ethic that we will do the right thing for our membership. That mix of commitment to product quality, creativity and integrity sums up the best of British luxury.
What attracted you to becoming a Walpole member?
At Ten, we believe in creative, long-term collaboration with brands that share our values of quality, personalisation and building trust. Our members want us to guide them to the brands and experiences that are right for them – and Walpole is the best place for us to meet those brands in the UK.
If you could collaborate with another Walpole member, which one would you choose?
We would love to introduce more great brands to our members. Due to our heritage of booking upmarket travel and restaurants, we are already a trusted partner to most British hospitality brands. But now, with our growing ability to communicate with our large membership on a one-to-one, personalised basis, we are keen to work with product and fashion brands. This year, we’ll be promoting the Great British Luxury campaign to our wealthy members in the UK, and also to our members who visit from abroad, and I expect to see many Walpole members taking part in that campaign.
Visit Ten's member profile here
Learn more about Ten at tenlifestylegroup.com
