Larry Lipman has been the main driving force behind the Safestay business since its establishment. He is responsible for the Group’s strategy and business development. He has extensive experience of the property market, gained during the last thirty years or so, throughout which he has been the managing director of Safeland plc, where his primary focus is on trading opportunities and the assessment of potential investments and refurbishment projects.

He was also a key executive in each of Safeland’s previous demergers and in each case he continued after the demerger to be closely involved with the growth of those businesses as well as continuing to manage the core businesses of Safeland.

Michael Hirst is a former Chairman of the UK Events Industry Board where he has been advising Ministers on how to increase the value of international business events held in the UK. In that capacity, he served on the Tourism Industry Council advising Government on the Tourism Recovery Plan. He is an Executive Committee member and past Chairman of the Business Visits & Events Partnership, representing Britain’s Events Industry and a director of The Tourism Alliance, bringing together all the major tourism organisations in the UK.

He is a Director of CP Holdings Ltd, a diversified industrial and services group, which includes hotels and thermal spas in Central Europe and a service office business in the UK. He is a former consultant to CBRE Hotels, the world’s leading hotel experts. He also advises hospitality and tourism businesses and has acted as an Arbitrator for the International Court of Arbitration in hotel dispute resolution. Michael Hirst was appointed an OBE for services to tourism in Britain and awarded the Joint Meetings Industry Council Unity Award, for his significant contribution to the advancement of the international Meetings Industry. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for his distinguished career in hospitality, leisure and tourism by the International Hotel Investment Forum and recently awarded a Fellowship by the Event and Visual Communications Association. He was a board member of the Ladbroke Group Plc where he was Chairman and CEO of Hilton International and voted “Corporate Hotelier of the World” by HOTELS Magazine.

Sarah Whiddett has over 17 years’ leadership experience in Insight, CX and Marketing. Currently, she is a Strategic Client Partner for Kantar Insights & Consulting, a leading global data, insight and consultancy agency. Sarah, and her global matrix team, support clients with their brand strategy, innovation, creative and media activation, and consumer experience, through a mix of research, analytics and consultancy services. She was previously Chair and Director of AURA, the UK's biggest client-side research networking and events organisation, and prior to that held numerous leadership positions at food and drinks wholesaler Bidfood. Alongside these roles, Sarah has been involved in extensive public speaking and industry engagement, judging multiple industry awards, speaking at conferences and leading press engagement. Sarah was a Marketing Academy Scholar 2019 – selected as a group of 30 future leaders from a group of over 600 applicants, and was selected for the Kantar Women in Leadership program 2022.
Sarah has been enlisted to the Safestay board in 2023 to support Safestay’s growth ambition, utilising her marketing and consumer insight expertise.