As Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Abercrombie & Kent Group of Companies (A&K), Geoffrey Kent brings a truly extraordinary lifetime of experience, innovation and genuine passion to the world's most exclusive luxury adventure travel corporation. A&K has 52 offices around the world employing more than 2,000 travel professionals.
A pioneer of the modern luxury safari, he has taken his company - and his clients - from undiscovered areas of the African continent to the furthermost reaches of the globe. A&K offers 350 small group escorted journeys and tailor made private travel to more than 100 countries on all seven continents. As they have fashioned their company, the common denominator among all of A&K's unforgettable journeys is an unwavering commitment to service: the unquestioned best in expert guides, luxurious accommodations, safety standards, unique and proprietary modes of transport, and an assiduously crafted choice of amenities and insider access experiences.
Geoffrey Kent's life began, really, much as he lives it today - amid excitement and adventure in an exotic location. He was born while his parents, Colonel John and Valerie Kent, were on safari in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Growing up on the family farm in the Aberdare Highlands of Kenya, Kent's eventful childhood was spent in the splendor and drama of untamed Africa. He attended the then-new Duke of York School in Nairobi, which would ultimately produce many of Kenya's business and science leaders.
In the 1970s, Geoffrey Kent, who by then had long been the Managing Director of the company, entered into partnership with Jorie Ford Butler of Oak Brook, Illinois, to expand Abercrombie & Kent. To this day, they continue to travel the world in search of the kinds of adventures that will surprise and thrill their clients. Under their passionate and visionary guidance -- Geoffrey Kent serves as Chairman and CEO, Jorie Butler Kent as Vice Chairman -- Abercrombie & Kent represents the uncompromising best at every turn in the road.
A&K guides explorations to such regions of the world as Africa, Antarctica, Australia and the South Pacific, China and the Orient, India, Europe, Egypt and the Middle East, South and Central America and the western United States and Canada. A&K makes the most faraway places in the world more accessible.
The company owns many of the products it uses to create its unforgettable holidays and has introduced many experiences now considered the best in travel. This luxury portfolio includes four Sun Boats on the Nile, the world-famous Royal Scotsman train and the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express trains and river cruisers in Europe and Asia. A "new millennium" approach to travel promotes cultural understanding and insures privileged access for guests on both small group and tailor made programs.
The Kent formula of providing a "luxury cocoon" from which to explore the world attracts prominent guests such as Dr. Henry Kissinger, Barbara Walters, Goldie Hawn, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Kristin Davis (Melrose Place), Sharon Lawrence (Hill Street Blues), Diane Sawyer and Bill Gates. These high profile travelers are among the literally thousands of well-known people who have journeyed to the wildest and most remote corners of the globe with A&K.
Geoffrey Kent has many other interests including currently chairing the World Travel & Tourism Council.
