Former Six Senses president Bernhard Bohnenberger, in conversation with EHL's Dr. Masaki Mori, on testing an idea, funding it, and leading once the safety net is gone.
Most hospitality leaders build exceptional careers inside organizations. Far fewer build the organization themselves. On 15 October 2026, Hosco and EHL Hospitality Business School brought together a founder who has done it twice and an academic who studies the financial side of the decision:
- Bernhard Bohnenberger (BB), Co-Founder and CEO, Discover Collection, and former President of Six Senses
- Dr. Masaki Mori, Associate Professor of Real Estate Finance, EHL Hospitality Business School
Hosted by Hosco's Raksha Daryanani, the session was a guided conversation in three stages: testing the idea, preparing the business, and what the transition means personally. Dr. Mori asked the questions. BB answered with very few illusions about how it works.
Twenty-Eight Years of Testing the Waters
BB is an EHL graduate and has sat on the school's board for the past 14 years. He started in traditional luxury, in palace hotels in Europe and with The Peninsula in Hong Kong. What struck him there was a contradiction: the more guests paid for a leisure experience, the stiffer and more formal it became. That question became the starting point for Six Senses, where he was one of the founders and served as president for 28 years.
Those years doubled as a long-running test of what guests would pay for. Shoes came off on the boat to the island ("no news, no shoes") at a time when guests paying thousands of dollars a night expected gowns and air conditioning. Farms built to solve a supply problem became farm-to-table, long before the term existed. Visiting physiotherapists turned into Six Senses Spas. "People thought I'm really mad," he said. The proof that the ideas worked was simple: the rest of the industry copied them.
When IHG acquired Six Senses in 2019, BB had a choice: stay with the brand inside a large group, or start again. He chose to start fresh. Discover Collection, which curates private estates, bespoke resorts and private clubs, is now six years old.
From Demand to Profit
Dr. Mori pressed on the gap between guests liking an idea and an idea making money. BB's answer was about differentiation. If you swim in an ocean of fish all doing the same thing, there is little room to charge a premium. Do things differently and add real value, and you earn higher rates, higher occupancy and attention you do not have to pay for. "In my entire career, I've never actively advertised," he said. Something genuinely new gave the press and guests a reason to talk.
Funding, Freedom and the Right People
Discover Collection started with an entrepreneurial American investor who co-invested and co-founded the company with BB. A third investor has since joined. The team began with two people, then five. Today it has 51.
The funding came with a clear agreement on control. BB asked for autonomy in exchange for full accountability and reporting. Creativity, he argued, gets stifled by "an army of accountants and auditors" checking every move. Answering an audience question, he added that he arrived with a clear direction rather than a blank page, and that the investor's role is to buy into the idea, then leave the founder the freedom to run it. That freedom is something you negotiate and put in the contract. "Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth."
On hiring, he was candid that his way of working is not for everyone. Some people prefer a stable job with a known routine, and that is fine. A founding team needs creative, entrepreneurial people, but it also needs people who keep it grounded financially and in discipline. "If everybody is the same, you don't get anywhere."
Timing, Risk and the Conversation at Home
The IHG acquisition was the trigger, but BB said the appetite for starting something new had always been there. His advice to anyone considering the same step was a gut check: does the idea energize you, or does it scare you? "If it's something that scares you and you're not ready, then don't do it."
The same applies at home. Before taking the risk, talk to your family and close friends. Without their support, he said, the venture is unlikely to be sustainable, because every difficult month becomes a debate about why you did it.
Risk is real and often external. COVID arrived shortly after he left Six Senses, and he admitted he was lucky to be planning a new venture rather than managing layoffs. His point was that crises reward creativity. During COVID, some hoteliers found new business while others simply closed.
Life Without the Safety Net
Personally, the transition felt like relief. After 28 years running a business that grew to around 6,000 team members, he could stop, think and start from nothing. "You can't create something fresh and run something that's long established." He spent 15 months based at a polo club, riding in the mornings and evenings and working late into the night on the plan, provided, as he stressed, the investment was already secured.
The pandemic also reshaped how he built the team. Six Senses had more than 100 full-time staff in its Bangkok head office. Discover Collection keeps its discipline heads mainly at headquarters in Bangkok, places its sales and marketing team in Europe to bridge time zones, and works with part-time consultants who prefer flexibility. Without COVID, he said, he would probably have opened an office and built a very different company.
When decisions get hard, BB turns to the team. Around half of the 51 have worked with him before, some for more than 20 years. He keeps the structure flat and actively invites criticism, describing hierarchical companies where people smile upward and stay silent as a model that no longer works. The same trust shapes difficult personnel decisions. Asked whether he has had to let go of someone he trusted, he said yes, but only after open conversations and a genuine chance to fix the problem.
The One Rule: No Compromise
With 16 resorts and urban properties signed and more in the pipeline, BB cannot be involved in every design meeting, hire or site visit. What makes delegation possible is a single company rule: no compromise. Values and "philosophies" (he avoids the word policies) are written down and applied to every project.
In practice, that means turning work away. The site must be exceptional and protected from future development nearby. The owner, whom Discover Collection calls the capital partner rather than the owner, must be aligned with what the brand stands for. Bookings do not come through online travel agents or tour operators. Guests become members first, so both sides know each other. And there will be no second brand, a lesson he learned when Six Senses scaled back from several brands to one.
"Saying no in the beginning is easy," he said. "Saying yes, and then trying to fix it, and you're deep into a contract, it's not easy." Every time he compromised in the past to be nice, "it wasn't nice to them and it wasn't nice to me. Everybody suffered."
Pricing Something New
One audience question asked how to price a product that has no direct comparison. BB's method is like-for-like. Discover Collection builds only its best product: no second or third row of beach villas, no cheaper garden-view category, every unit with a living room and generous dressing space. So the benchmark is the best room type, in the best location, at the strongest properties in the market. A smaller, more personal property then earns a premium on top. Looked at that way, the achievable rate can be two or three times a conventional property's average.
Finding an Investor
For the audience question every aspiring founder asks, where to find investors, Dr. Mori pointed to EHL's Innovation Hub, which prepares founders to pitch and connects them with potential investors through its events. BB's advice was more direct: look for spaces where you can present yourself, and be brave enough to write to people who might be interested and ask for their time. Some will say yes.
The One Step to Take This Week
Dr. Mori closed by asking what someone considering a business should do this week. BB's answer: think about what you are genuinely good at and what you love, then ask honestly whether that can be a business. Write down the idea, test it with friends and people in the industry, and only commit once you are sure.
The founder's path is not a leap into the unknown. It is a series of honest questions, about the idea, the money, the people around you and yourself, answered before the contract is signed.
The full masterclass recording is available on Hosco's YouTube channel. EHL's graduate programs are listed at gs.ehl.edu, and its Innovation Hub at innovationhub.ehl.edu. Follow Hosco on LinkedIn to hear about upcoming masterclasses.