Ian Schrager is a major hotelier often credited with pioneering the concept of the boutique hotel.

Since 2005, he has been the chairman and CEO of the Ian Schrager Company. He partnered in 2007 with Marriott on a new, collaborative brand of boutique hotels, the first of which opened in 2010.

In 1977, Schrager co-founded the famous Manhattan nightclub, Studio 54.

Schrager and his Studio 54 business partner, Steve Rubell, were convicted of tax evasion in 1980 and spent a year in prison. They rebounded with the Morgans Hotel. That success led to the opening of the Century Paramount and the Royalton.

After Rubells death in 1989, Schrager started the Morgans Hotel Group, whose holdings would come to include the Delano Hotel in Miami, the Clift in San Francisco, the Hudson Hotel in New York and the Sanderson Hotel in London.

Since leaving the Morgans Group in 2005, Schragers notable ventures have included not only hotels but condominiums, notably 50 Gramercy Park North and 40 Bond.  -TA