Benjamin Earley

Benjamin Earley is an American entrepreneur, hotelier, and property developer. He is best known as the founder of HOLT, a global hospitality brand with properties spread across three countries, where he serves as the company's CEO. Earley is the recipient of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA®) Award.
Earley, prior to establishing HOLT founded Paul Evans - a luxury shoe brand that gained recognition for selling Italian-made shoes and accessories online. This venture by Earley is considered one of the earliest business models in the DTC sector for making luxury goods accessible to the general public. 
Earley began his career with J.P. Morgan Asset Management. He also founded a DTC mattress company called Saintly and was a co-owner of a restaurant in NYC called Rose & Basil, with his current wife Ioana Holt. He is also an avid stock and cryptocurrency trader and investor with extensive experience in the industry. 
==Early life and education==
Earley grew up in Baltimore City with a younger sister named Catherine and two parents who served as doctors at the NIH and Johns Hopkins University. Earley received his elementary education at Mt. Washington Elementary School before transferring to The Park School of Baltimore for grades 6 through 12. 
Earley's interest in stocks began when he was 12 years old when his parents created a Schwab account for him. Earley's curiosity was piqued and he began devouring all of the trading and investing books he could find, including classics like Market Wizards and Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, as well as works by William J. O'Neil and Joel Greenblatt. 
Earley played soccer and lacrosse in high school and excelled on the lacrosse field. He scored the opening and winning overtime goals to push Park School to their first lacrosse championship since the 1980s in May 2005, while playing for the MIAA 'B' Conference championship on the legendary Johns Hopkins Homewood Field versus Park School's rival John Carrol. Earley also assisted in the establishment of the first Economics subject at their high school while still in high school. 
Earley enrolled in Tulane University in 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit on Freshman Move In Day which resulted in the cancelation of the Fall semester. Earley ended up attending Johns Hopkins University, which was just down the street from his childhood home. Earley opted for a double degree in Finance and Accounting when he returned to Tulane University for his Spring Freshman semester in 2006. He spent the spring semester of his junior year at Universidad Pontificia Comillas, where he discovered his voice as a Spanish speaker after years of study in high school and college. Earley graduated Summa Cum Laude from A.B. Freeman School of Business and was one of the Top 10 people.
==Career==
Earley began his career in July 2009 when he joined J.P. Morgan Private Bank in New Orleans. Two years later he moved to J.P. Morgan Asset Management in New York City. Earley was a member of the firm's Global Access Portfolios, a private-placement hedge fund of funds, in New York. He strengthened his understanding of asset and risk allocation, financial statement analysis, and the value of sales in the finance business during his time there.
In July 2013 after two years of study and testing, Earley successfully completed the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program and was awarded the CFA charter, becoming a CFA charter holder.
Earley founded Paul Evans in August 2013, while still at J.P. Morgan, a luxury shoe brand that sells Italian-made shoes and accessories online directly to customers all over the world. Paul Evans was a shock to the direct-to-consumer (DTC) sector, as it was created in Napoli at factories that made some of the nicest leather goods in the world. Until then, no one had attempted to offer truly premium products in the DTC industry. Earley with this venture aimed to make luxury accessible to the general public. Earley began managing Airbnb rental homes for people in NYC in late 2013. In August 2014, Earley departed J.P. Morgan to focus on his enterprises. 
Earley co-founded HOLT with his then-girlfriend Ioana Holt in 2018. He leveraged his extensive experience in managing properties to buy and lease properties in Aspen, Colorado, and Bucharest, Romania. During the pandemic, HOLT opened properties in Oaxaca de Juárez and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Earley is also a frequent investor in private equity and venture capital. Heli, an adventure trip booking website developed by his friends Andy Culp and Brandon Darnton, is his favorite private investment to date. He is also an avid stock and cryptocurrency trader and investor.
==Personal life==
In the summer of 2016, Earley met his wife, Ioana Holt, in the East Village. In 2018, they co-founded HOLT. They currently live together with their french bulldog, Chiara. Earley is a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, having been born in Houston, Texas. He is fluent in English and Spanish.
==References==
==External links==
* Official Website
* 
Category:1987 births
Category:American entrepreneurs
Category:American hoteliers
Category:American real estate developers
Category:Tulane University alumni