Steven Ferry

Chairman Steven Ferry was born and raised in Southern England, where he attended private schools and Art College. He worked both in the hospitality industry and in private service in England during the 1980s before training as a butler in England and then working as one in the United States. In the early 1990s, he established the International Guild of Traditional Butlers and wrote the basic manual on how to butle. By the mid-1990s, he had left private service to focus on his writing and consulting career.

Drawing on his early years as an educator in England, he published three textbooks for the profession: “The British Butlers’ Bible,” “Butlers and Household Managers, 21st Century Professionals,” and “Hotel Butlers, the Great Service Differentiators” and began to train butlers in private households and consult their employers about their domestic needs, as well as being a visiting professor at The International Butler Academy. He subsequently broadened his focus to improve on service standards using the butler model, by providing training and consulting to the hospitality industry, founding the International Institute of Modern Butlers in 2004.

 In 2006, he introduced rating standards to the industry for butlers in hotels. In 2007, he introduced the spa butler as a resource for hotels and resorts with spas, to assist them in bringing about the ultimate spa experience for guests. In the same year, he introduced the concept of the Guest from Hell and helped establish the HotelSafeguard program for hotels. The campaign then widened further to include corporations and all service industries. In 2016, his definitive two-volume series, Serving The Wealthy, was published and he began to focus on establishing butler training programs as “force multipliers” within universities and trade schools in key countries of Asia.

He is currently on the Editorial Board of Hotel Business Review with 50 articles published there and in a variety of other industry trade magazines. He has lectured at a number of venues, including Harvard and Moscow universities, and in 2018, established DNA Quality Assurance with two industry leaders to raise service standards in hotels asnd resorts around the world, including introducing butler service standards for the hundreds of 5* hotels and resorts around the world that offer the service.

As Chairman of the Board of the International Institute of Modern Butlers, he oversees the operations of its offices and trainers around the world and personally trains butlers and other service professionals around the world.

Prior to working in the hospitality profession, Steven was a professor of education and worked in the non-profit sector in various capacities. He has over 20 books published, as well as hundreds of articles & photographs for major US publishers and corporations.

Industry Books
The British Butlers’ Bible, Mansion Publishing, 2001
Butlers and Household Managers, 21st Century Professionals, Imprint Books, 2002
Hotel Butlers, The Great Service Differentiators, Booksurge Publishing, 2004
Serving The Wealthy, Volume I, CreateSpace, 2016
Serving The Wealthy, Volume II, CreateSpace, 2016

Professional Affiliations
Founder, International Guild of Traditional Butlers, 1992
Executive Member, International Guild of Professional Butlers (past)
Founder, The International Institute of Modern Butlers
Visiting Professor, The International Butler Academy (past)
Editorial Board, Hotel Business Magazine

Monica Ferry

Ms. Monica Ferry was born and raised in Holland. Speaking English and Dutch fluently, German and French acceptably, she worked in the non-profit sector in Europe and the United States in a variety of capacities, including as a teacher, for over 15 years.

Monica later worked as head housekeeper, as part of a household management team with her husband, in England. When they moved to the United States, she resumed an earlier profession as a paralegal and worked for various law firms in Anchorage, Alaska, including for the plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case. She subsequently earned her MBA, interned for the Small Business Administration in Alaska and then worked as the business manager for three small businesses in Florida.

She has run the day to day affairs of the Institute as the Executive Director at the Institute’s headquarters since its inception. From time to time she assists with teaching larger classes, including teaching executive skills to butler managers.

Amer A. Vargas

Amer A. Vargas graduated with a Tourism Degree specializing in hotel management from CETT (Center for Tourism Studies) in Barcelona and spent the following decade in the service industry. Beginning as a waiter and then supervisor in high-end restaurants, he was next made responsible for raising service standards through staff training programs. After receiving further training as a butler, he worked as a butler and valet in private service as well as hotels in England and Europe. During this time period, he translated the best-selling industry texts Butlers & Household Managers, 21st Century Professionals and Hotel Butlers, The Great Service Differentiators into Spanish.

As President, Amer is responsible for making the technology of butling available in, private residences and hotels around the world, and particularly in Spanish-speaking countries. He provides consultation, placement, and training services in these countries. He is currently creating butler training materials in the Spanish language.

Robert da Pozzo

Vice President for Recruitment. Within his multiple years of private service as a second-generation butler, Robert has managed private estates of up to 65,000 sq. ft. for some of the wealthiest and most well-known people in the world, as well as their private aircraft and yachts in several countries, with large staffs speaking many different languages. He has joined the Institute to elevate the hiring experience for staff and clients alike.

Frank Mitchell

Frank Mitchell grew up in South Africa and spent the first ten years of his career in the banking industry before training as a butler and working in private service, managing three properties.

He next switched to the hospitality industry and helped open the first all-butler hotel in the Mediterranean, training the butlers on a program that he developed. He was subsequently asked to join a Swiss hotel management company, on behalf of which he trained hotel butlers at various locations in the Indian Ocean and Russian Federation. His responsibilities included hiring and training staff, procuring equipment, writing SOP¹s, and drawing up departmental budgets. Mr. Mitchell joined the Institute in late 2007 as a trainer and consultant.

Wayne Fitzharris

Wayne Fitzharris is a Master of H.C.I.M.A. (Hotel & Catering International Management Association) and studied marketing at Cornell University. As Director and lead trainer he oversees The International Guild of Butlers and Housemanagers, (IGBH) which looks after the recruitment, placement and training of Executive Butlers, Household Managers and Household Staff around the world. Wayne has also been asked to supply consultancy and etiquette training for many of the families he worked for around the world. In addition to his training commitments, Wayne is a Director of Global Search International responsible for the Executive Recruitment of some of the Hotel Industry’s leading players in some of the finest resorts around the world.

Wayne began his career at the Dorchester Hotel, and helped open St Andrews Old Course Hotel in Scotland, which won the Caterer Magazine’s “”Hotel of the Year” award. Two years later he took on the role of Household Manager for the Royal Family of Jordan, in Amman, where he supervised over 750 staff, and was tasked with training and bringing the standards up to date.

In 1996, Wayne developed his training skills at various luxury resorts and restaurants around the world. By 2002 he had set up Global Search International and in 2006, joined forces with the Institute.

Canan Yonsel

Ms. Canan Yonsel graduated from the Tourism School and also completed her MBA at the Bosphorus University in Istanbul. She worked in Turkish and US corporations, reaching the position of financial controller for Union Carbide before returning to the tourism field.

There she worked in management and sales for the 5 star Etap Marmara Hotel and Moevenpick Hotel before partnering in a travel agency that organizes meetings, seminars, product launches, press relations, and PR for multinational corporations She also freelances as an executive consultant for international executive search companies. Combining her tourism and executive search background, she next developed the executive search department of an international hospitality consultancy company, Servus International, serving Turkey and the Middle East, where she also placed many top- and middle-level managers for leading hotels and restaurants in the region.

She joined The International Institute of Modern Butlers LLC as its Director of Operations for Turkey and the Middle East, responsible for sales, marketing, placement, and the coordination of training and consulting activities.

Nuala Galbari

Born in Northern Ireland, Ms. Nuala Galbari studied hospitality management with the City & Guilds (London) Institute at the College of Business Studies, Belfast and Theatrical Arts at ILEA, Notting Hill Gate, London. She worked in hospitality marketing during the early 1970s and later joined the airline industry, where she held positions as flight purser and in-flight supervisor for several international airlines.

Moving to the United States in 1981, she completed studies in fine arts and graphic design at the Minnesota School of Business and worked in advertising before forming a consulting company. She is currently studying Fine Arts at Oxford University. She is the author of numerous articles and books and writes regularly for the tourism and aviation industries.

Dr. David L. Justis

Dr. David L. Justis completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Dubuque, IA and the University of Iowa, and graduate studies and medical school at the University of Cincinnati, OH. He completed his post-doctoral training at Hennepin County Medical Center, and the University of Minnesota where he later served as an associate clinical professor.

Dr. Justis has worked in emergency medicine and education for over 38 years and served as senior vice president for Emergency Physicians Professional Association. He was medical director of Mid-Continent Airlines during the 1970s and 1980s and helped develop the emergency medical curriculum for Sun Country and Northwest Airlines flight crews.

Dr. Justis was a national speaker in various medical fields and is a Fellow Emeritus of the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. He took an active role in placing defibrillators in hotels, airports, and onboard aircraft around the world as a medical advisor to SurViva-Link, Physio Control and Vital Health Technologies.