About Me

Monty Bennett is a well-known hotelier from Henderson County and Dallas, Texas. He and his staff own, manage, and operate approximately 100 hotels across the United States through Ashford, Inc., Ashford Hospitality Trust, and Braemar Hotels & Resorts.

His collection of high-end homes dates back to the late 1960s. Bennett has taken the family firm public and developed it from six hotels to more than 130 in the decades after that. He and his colleagues also manage 13 resort sites across six states and the United States Virgin Islands.

Monty attended Cornell University. As one of seven children, the hotel magnate grew up in Houston, Texas. He currently splits his time between Dallas, Texas, and nearby Athens, about an hour southeast of the city he and his growing family have called home for the past 30 years.

Monty is the chairman and CEO of Ashford Hospitality Trust, as well as the chairman and CEO of Braemar Hotels & Resorts.

Monty Bennett established Braemar Hotels & Resorts as an outgrowth of Ashford Hospitality Trust in 2013. The company has 13 property holdings under his skilled direction. The Ritz-Carlton St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands and The Ritz-Carlton Lake Tahoe in Nevada County, California, are two of the company's iconic properties.

Braemar Hotels & Resorts adheres to five principles consistent with Bennett's convictions. The five guiding principles are ethics, innovation, profitability, engagement, and tenacity.

Bennett launched the Ashford Hospitality Trust in 2003. The trust mostly invests in upscale, full-service hotels. In 2013, Ashford Hospitality Trust went public. The firm owns over 110 properties, including landmarks such as The Ritz Carlton Atlanta, the neighboring W Hotel Atlanta, and the Renaissance Nashville Hotel.

Ashford Hospitality Trust and its predecessor firms have over 50 years of experience in the hotel industry. Bennett and his colleagues benefit from a wealth of knowledge gathered through numerous hotel cycles, rigorous market activity, and value-added asset management operations. As a result, the trust now has a highly successful transactional track record.

The five guiding principles of Ashford Hospitality Trust and Braemar Hotels & Resorts are the same. It also has a strong philanthropic foundation and is an active partner and contributor to the local community. In addition, through large company-wide charity initiatives like its annual Community Service Day, the corporation tries to support groups that aid those in need positively.

Ashford, Inc., another of Monty Bennett's businesses, was established in 2014. Its primary function is to advise Braemar Hotels & Resorts and Ashford Hospitality Trust. Ashford, Inc. is an alternative asset management firm that provides global asset management, investment management, and related services to Braemar Hotels & Resorts and Ashford Hospitality Trust.

This is in addition to simultaneously serving a broader portfolio of strategic, operational firms and others in the real estate and hospitality industries.

Bennett also has a specialized Hospitality Products and Services department at Ashford, Inc. Through this creative division; the company is perfectly positioned to invest in running firms that serve the hospitality industry. Ashford, Inc. also serves as a growth accelerator for these organizations through several proprietary platforms and third-party programs.

Monty earned a bachelor's degree with honors from Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration in 1989. He also has a master's degree from Cornell University, a famous Ivy League research university in Ithaca, New York, where he earned his master's in business administration from the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management.

He is still a member of the Cornell Hotel Society.

Monty Bennett has worked in practically every facet of the hotel industry for over 30 years. Among the many highly specialized fields of knowledge are hotel real estate, finance, ownership, operations, development, asset management, and project management.

He continues to draw on his decades of professional experience to examine executive-level hospitality growth, projections, economics, news, insights, and other topics.

Bennett has held memberships in and leadership roles in various high-profile industry associations during his decades-long career, in addition to his duties with Braemar Hotels & Resorts, Ashford Hospitality Trust, and Ashford, Inc. He is also an active philanthropist, having contributed to over 100 charities, charitable organizations, and other worthy causes during his career.

Monty has and continues to support over 100 charities, nonprofit organizations, and other worthwhile causes. A short sample of these is as follows:

Alzheimer's Disease Association
America's Boy Scouts
Burn Foundation for Children
Foundation for Crohn's and Colitis
Foundation for Cystic Fibrosis
Foundation for Dyslexia
Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund
Fighting Blindness by Feeding Children Properly
Habitat for Humanity International
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Melanoma Research Institute
Children's Miracles
Brain Tumor Society of America
North Texas Food Bank of the National Kidney Foundation
Project Lyme Salvation Army Pancreatic Cancer Action Network
St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital
Volunteer with Teach for America
Youth Achievement Foundation of the Young Men's Service League
He has advocated for civic engagement, particularly for children and educational equality. He is especially proud of his contributions to the Dallas-Fort Worth community. Furthermore, the well-known hotel magnate has long supported the brother's ministry, the Christian Union.

Exercise, game management, and reading are examples of hobbies and interests. He also enjoys spending time outside with his family and friends at the Bennett family ranch in East Texas. The Bennett family has now owned a section of the enormous 1,500-acre ranch in Athens for three generations.