Creating Our Legacy
Over the past thousand years, the profession of the Butler has been shaped by a sacred tradition, a lineage of knowledge and skill passed from one generation to the next. Each new Butler has sought not merely to emulate those who came before, but to elevate the standards, values, and spirit of service that define our noble craft.
Our industry stands proudly on the foundation of history and the unwavering professionalism we embody. As time has evolved, so too has our profession.
Today, interpretations of what it means to be a Butler vary, and the clarity of our original purpose risks being blurred by the demands and expectations of modern life.
We cannot change the past, but we can shape the future. If we are to preserve the integrity of our craft, we must commit to becoming role models, inspiring the next generation with the standards, discipline, and values that have long been the hallmarks of our profession.
Each of us holds the power to define and protect our legacy. By cultivating the right mindset, mastering essential skills, and demonstrating behaviours that are valued and cherished, we ensure that the timeless spirit of the Butler endures, ever evolving, yet never compromised.
Meet Our Founders
Wayne Fitzharris
The Professional British Butler School
Joint Founder of Master Butler Collection, Luxury Trainer and visionary
A Journey into Private Service: Serving the Hashemite Royal Family of Jordan. It began not with a grand plan, but with a quiet invitation, an opportunity that found me rather than one I had sought.
My journey into private service, and ultimately into the privileged role of Butler and House Manager to Their Majesties, King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan, unfolded through a series of moments that would forever shape my life and character.
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At the time, I was concluding a chapter in Scotland, deeply rooted in the traditions of luxury hospitality and service. I carried with me the training of a chef, a meticulous knowledge of health and safety, and extensive experience in guest relations and training. Then came a call from Nina Bennett Johnson, a woman of grace and exquisite discretion. She spoke of a prestigious opportunity in the Middle East, though the details remained cloaked in confidentiality. “I cannot tell you who it is for,” she said. Still, I applied.
After an extensive and demanding selection process, I was finally entrusted with the revelation: the position was to serve the Royal Household of Jordan. I arrived in Amman, the majestic capital of the Hashemite Kingdom, in September, and by December, I had accepted the honour. What followed was a life-altering chapter from 1992 to 1995, serving as both Personal Butler and Royal Palace Manager. Together with a small, dedicated team, I helped oversee the state functions, private affairs, and daily life of one of the world’s most revered royal families.
At the heart of this chapter were two extraordinary individuals who would become my mentors in profoundly complementary ways.
The Palace Director, Mr. Ramzi Masarweh, an American Jordanian gentleman with roots between Lebanon, Jordan, and California, became a guiding force in both my professional and personal evolution. He taught me empathy, not as a soft virtue, but as a commanding strength. He believed in leading by empowering others, achieving greatness through people, not despite them. Under his stewardship, I learned the art of quiet strength, and that true leadership rests upon humility, grace, and unwavering purpose.
Alongside him stood the formidable Head Housekeeper, Lieisa Segovia, a proud and exacting German woman whose career had been shaped at the iconic Waldorf Astoria in New York. Lieisa instilled in me a discipline of the highest order. Her standards were uncompromising, her expectations elevated. To her, nothing was ever enough, and she was right. There was always a refinement to be made, a detail to perfect. While others found her directness daunting, I embraced her mentorship, recognising in her an architect of excellence.
Between Ramzi and Lieisa, I found a powerful equilibrium. Ramzi imparted empathy, Lieisa instilled precision, and in their contrasting strengths, I discovered the pillars upon which true service is built. Service, I realised, is a profound act of humanity, artistry, and purpose.
Together, Ramzi and I elevated the standards of service with deliberate grace. Through continuous learning and shared commitment, we found ways to bring joy to Their Majesties and their esteemed guests. We trained our butlers to move in perfect unison, ensuring that every interaction, every service gesture, was seamless, graceful, and imbued with dignity.
We had the honour of serving the world’s most distinguished leaders, including presidents, kings, queens, and prime ministers from every corner of the globe. Our days would shift from the grandeur of official state business to the intimacy of private family life in the blink of an eye. In every moment, we proudly showcased the heart of Jordanian hospitality, offering sophisticated service that reflected the Kingdom’s warmth, traditions, and enduring values. It was hospitality at its finest, a beautiful dance of elegance and authenticity that made every Jordanian proud.
Whilst all of this unfolded, it was our team who stood at the very centre of this extraordinary service journey. They were pivotal in every success we achieved. Ramzi, with his innate wisdom, ensured that the welfare, care, and happiness of our team were never overlooked. He believed deeply that happy staff create happy guests, and every gesture, every decision, reflected this philosophy. By nurturing a culture of respect, kindness, and professional pride, we created an environment where excellence thrived naturally, where each individual felt valued and inspired to deliver their very best.
Training, developing systems, and continuously improving our standards were central pillars of our approach. We understood that empowering our people meant giving them the tools, the confidence, and the knowledge to succeed. Through bespoke training sessions, refinements of our service protocols, and an unwavering commitment to personal and professional growth, we built a culture where excellence was not demanded, but inspired from within.
We elevated Jordanian hospitality into a beacon of elegance, warmth, and refined tradition, welcoming heads of state and lifelong friends of the Crown alike with the utmost reverence.
And amidst the formal grandeur, there were deeply human moments that revealed the soul of true service. I shall never forget Christmas of 1992, when Lieisa Segovia, despite her stern exterior, welcomed me, a stranger in a foreign land, into her home. She offered me gifts, shared her table, and reminded me that Christmas was not merely a ritual, but a celebration of friendship and belonging. That moment remains etched in my heart.
To serve His Majesty King Hussein, an extraordinary sovereign, beloved by his people, was the highest honour of my life. A direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, His Majesty carried a natural dignity, a wisdom anchored in humility, and a warmth that transcended ceremony. His safety was our solemn duty, his happiness our profound reward.
Though my title was Manager, I was above all a student of life, a servant of grace, and a guardian of discretion. I became a butler not merely by role, but by spirit, through experience, humility, and the quiet teachings of those who came before me.
To this day, I carry their lessons forward. They are not simply memories of prestige, but guiding principles, essential truths for all who seek to serve with honour, excellence, and soul. So I accidently became a Butler because I had to lead every service and share every technical skill, we served with a strong foundation of purpose and values.
Robin Stuart
Exceeding Expectations
Joint Founder of Master Butler Collection, Luxury Trainer and Former Chairman
I am passionate about service that comes from the heart and consistently exceeds expectations.
With over 40 years of management experience in the hospitality industry, I have loved every moment of my journey. My introduction to the world of butling came about quite unexpectedly. I was headhunted for an interview in Washington D.C. for the role of Butler to the family of the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Although the role was ultimately offered to another candidate with formal butler training, the experience sparked something in me.
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Intrigued and inspired, I began researching the profession and enrolled in The Guild of Professional English Butlers’ training programme, led by the esteemed Robert Watson. To my delight, I found that many of the skills and disciplines I had mastered in the hotel world were highly transferable to private service. I completed the training successfully and stepped into a new, deeply fulfilling chapter of my career.
Trust and confidentiality quickly revealed themselves as the cornerstone values of the butler and house management profession. As my career evolved, I was fortunate to hold positions where maintaining these standards was paramount.
My first post as a butler was in Oxfordshire, serving a prominent family in the food and beverage industry. This provided me with an excellent foundation in the traditions of a classic English household. From there, I accepted a role based in Austria, which involved extensive travel with the principal to residences across the globe. This position broadened my perspective and offered insight into the nuances of European household operations.
In my most recent appointment, I was entrusted with overseeing the full internal operations of a private family palace in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with occasional assignments in Jeddah. I led a team of over 160 multinational staff, ensuring the highest standards of service were consistently delivered to the family and their guests.
Following my tenure in KSA, I pursued a teaching qualification to formally transition into training and mentorship. This led to the creation of my personal training venture, Exceeding Expectations. Through this, I’ve had the privilege of sharing my knowledge, skills, and experience with aspiring professionals across the hospitality industry—helping them discover how to truly exceed guest expectations.
Training assignments have taken me across the world, including London, Riyadh, Las Vegas, PR China, Tokyo, Singapore, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, St. Lucia, and Mexico—each enriching my perspective and sharpening my approach.
As Oscar Wilde so aptly put it:
“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”
Josephine Ives
Magnums Academy
Honorary Member, writer and Luxury Trainer, The Master Butler
I became a butler quite unexpectedly. One day, a client called my catering company in urgent need of a butler, did we have one available? Without hesitation, I said yes. And so, my journey began. As fate would have it, I was blessed in more ways than one.
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Firstly, my father had been a butler. I was raised in a household where butlering wasn’t a mystery—it was part of our everyday life. You could say it was in my DNA. Secondly, I had a remarkable mentor instantly on hand. That very Saturday afternoon, I had a three-hour crash course in the fundamentals of butlering—delivered by none other than my father himself. By that evening, I was on the job.
The third blessing? I discovered I was “to the manor born.” I absolutely loved the role. What’s not to love? Eighteen-hour days, six or seven days a week, surrounded by beauty and refinement—and the immense satisfaction of serving at the highest level. I had an epiphany: if one cannot afford to live in luxury, one might as well work in it.
What captivated me most was the attention to detail and the deeply holistic nature of the butler’s role. It calls upon so many different skills—culinary, aesthetic, managerial—and allows one to orchestrate service with finesse. There is a true artistry in this profession. The simplest tasks—presenting a perfectly pressed shirt, setting a breathtaking table, or turning down a bed with quiet precision—can offer tremendous satisfaction. Beauty, indeed, lies in the eye of the beholder.
My background helped too. I trained as an apprentice chef, qualified, and pursued a teaching certificate, along with a vocational hairdressing course—which, surprisingly, has proven useful on numerous occasions. Ironically, my mother had taken the same chef training and later also became a butler.
Would I change any part of this path? Absolutely not. Today, as a trainer and mentor to the next generation of butlers, I continue to find purpose. Witnessing students blossom into professionals who carry our standards forward—that is a blessing in itself.
Steven Ferry
The International Institute of Modern Butlers
Honorary Member, writer and Luxury Trainer, The Master Butler
The horizons of the profession are broad and the skillsets required equally so, meaning there is much growth and challenge to be experienced personally; as the saying goes, “Being a butler is a life-long learning experience” and this is what attracted me to the profession initially like a bee to nectar.
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I was fortunate enough to have had a first-class education in multiple disciplines during which I came to appreciate the finer things of life that are the woof and warp” of life as a butler.
The satisfaction has not been just in interacting with others as a manager, employee, or service provider who bears witness to and helps facilitate others’ lives, over time becoming a symbiote* for them, but in maintaining a high standard of living and orchestrating, efficiently and aesthetically and generally behind the scenes, happy occasions large and small for one and all. It is an honour to be of use to others, meaning life as a butler has proven to be as pleasing as it promised in those early days so pregnant with hope and excitement.
The essential element of any structure, taken from the technology of weaving, in which the woof (the threads that run across a fabric) and the warp (that run vertically) combine to make the fabric.
Interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.
Meet Our Honorary Member
KURT CAMPBELL
Guild of Professional English Butlers, Senior Butler for MGM Resorts International
The Accidental Butler…
It was my great grandmother from England, who first shed light on the lifetime responsibility to always be of service to one another. The craft of Butler has been meaningful, because of its broad scope and the variety of responsibilities, which maximizes service and impact.
What began with a simple role in hospitality, along with a desire to excel and learn, quickly evolved into a 35+ year commitment to the art of service. Having always been passionate about wine, cuisine, music, art, travel and culture, I discovered that service could also be an art form in and of itself, and was a natural, if not a perfect, fit for me. Working on the Las Vegas Strip for nearly four decades is a journey I feel fortunate to have taken.
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Even though I’ve traveled a lot, the best thing about working in an international destination is that the world came to me. Las Vegas has long been associated with Hollywood, which captivated me. I have seen firsthand how the city’s “Hollywood Connection” has contributed to its notoriety. For decades, it has attracted the wealthy, the famous, and the jet-set individuals from all over the
world. I learned a great deal about my guest’s cultures, traditions, cuisines, and numerous international service techniques, for which I am grateful.
In recent years, Butlers are organizing with Culinary Union 226 (labor Union), because in numbers we can collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. I was a Culinary Union member for 35 years and was glad to see our craft recognized in that way. Hotel Butler departments have become increasingly valuable. They are a small group of service professionals taking care of an even smaller group of clients with high expectations.
Essentially, the ability to deliver outstanding service and to cultivate enduring relationships with clients is, in part, what satisfied me as a Hotel Butler. It has been an exceptional chance to positively influence people’s lives by being of service to others. That, in my opinion, is where true fulfillment in life (personal or professional) can be found.
My great grandmother was absolutely right.
Vision
- To improve the standards we have learned from those who have gone before.
- To present our profession worthy of distinction.
Our Mission
- By abiding to our code of conduct, we can improve the Butler Profession.
- Create a professional attitude and attract people to a life of self-less service.
For news and our latest press releases please contact our chairman,