introducing LAN ELLIOTT

about lan elliott

Lan Elliott is a hotel real estate executive with over 25 years of experience working with hotel owners and large hotel brand companies, both in North America and the Europe, Africa, and the Middle East (“EAME”) region.  Her work has focused on hotel acquisitions, dispositions, development, and real estate consulting.

In 2010, Ms. Elliott cofounded Acacia Hospitality LLC (“Acacia”) to focus on acquiring hotels in the United States.  Together with its partners, Acacia currently owns interests in five urban convention hotels, totaling nearly 4,600 rooms, managed under the Hilton, Hyatt Regency and Marriott brands, with a combined value of $750 million.  Acacia actively works with its partners and hotel management teams in the acquisition, asset management, renovation and/or expansion, and refinancing of these assets.

Previously, Ms. Elliott established and headed up the Transactions & Asset Management team, a part of IHG's Development group, which is responsible for working with IHG's owners on restructuring agreements on strategic assets, ensuring an appropriate retention strategy for key hotels, and working with IHG’s brand team on the rollout of new initiatives to hotel owners.  Ms. Elliott has also led development for W Hotels in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, while based in Starwood Hotels’ regional headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.  Under Ms. Elliott's direction, W Hotels’ footprint in the region rapidly expanded from 5 to 15 signed management agreements, including new W Hotels in London and Paris. 

Prior to moving overseas, Ms. Elliott was with Host Hotels & Resorts (formerly Host Marriott Corporation) for over 10 years in their Acquisitions group.  As Vice President, Acquisitions at Host, she was responsible for leading negotiations, due diligence, and closing on select service, full service and luxury hotel transactions.  Ms. Elliott worked on over 30 hotel transactions at Host valued at $8+ billion.

Before Host, Ms. Elliott was a Senior Consultant in KPMG's Real Estate & Hospitality group for over 4 years.  In this capacity, she conducted due diligence analyses for hotel transactions totaling $500+M, including the 1995 acquisition of The Plaza Hotel in New York City, provided litigation support for Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, and supervised market studies including hotel supply & demand analyses and pro formas.

Ms. Elliott was selected for a 5-year joint degree program at Cornell University, earning her Bachelor of Science from Cornell's School of Hotel Administration and her M.B.A. from Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management.  Ms. Elliott’s prior board experience includes two years as President of the Executive Board for the nonprofit Literacy Council of Montgomery County, Maryland from 2004 to 2006.  In 2018, she was invited to join ULI’s Hotel Development Council.  She is also actively involved as a volunteer with Castell@College, an AHLA Foundation Project, as co-chair of the Castell@College program.