Leadership

The Team

The Davenport Grand is being delivered by a leadership team drawn from the very top of international property, finance, architecture and hospitality. Each was chosen personally by our founder. Each shares her refusal to accept the ordinary.

Founder and Chief Executive

Scarlett Davenport

Scarlett Davenport founded Davenport Corp in 2008 and has led it ever since, building a portfolio of fourteen completed developments across Europe, the Middle East and the Americas with a combined value in excess of four billion euros. Her projects include The Aurelian in Marbella, Sovereign Heights in Dubai, Palazzo Davenport in Miami and Davenport Park in Surrey.

Scarlett takes personal charge of The Davenport Grand, chairing its executive committee and approving every significant design, commercial and guest experience decision. She divides her time between the company's European headquarters at Davenport House in Santa Eulària, its offices in London and Dubai and, increasingly, the site itself, where she is a familiar figure at the morning progress meeting.

Read Scarlett's biography

Executive committee

Finance and design

Chief Financial Officer

Javier Montalbán

Javier Montalbán joined Davenport Corp in 2015 from a distinguished career in private banking and structured property finance in Madrid, Geneva and Monaco. As Chief Financial Officer he is responsible for the group's capital strategy, investor relations and the financial architecture of The Davenport Grand, a project he describes as "the most elegant balance sheet in the Mediterranean".

Javier led the financing of Sovereign Heights and Palazzo Davenport, and has assembled for The Davenport Grand a consortium of private investors, family offices and international partners whose names, at their own request, remain confidential. He holds a degree in economics from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and is a keen sailor, cigar collector and polo enthusiast.

Chief Architect

Massimo Ferrandini

Massimo Ferrandini is the founding principal of Ferrandini Associati of Milan and one of the most celebrated, and most quoted, architects of his generation. He has designed palaces, towers and resorts on four continents and has worked alongside Scarlett Davenport since The Aurelian, which he still calls "our first child".

For The Davenport Grand, Massimo has conceived The Tower, the Grand Lobby and the overall masterplan of the estate, drawing on what he describes as "the vertical spirit of the Mediterranean". He is the author of three monographs, a regular lecturer in Milan and Shanghai and a firm believer that a building should be seen from as far away as possible. He works exclusively in pencil, on paper, in red.

Senior leadership

Delivering The Davenport Grand

From the first guest welcome to the last helicopter of the evening, our senior leadership team is responsible for every detail of life at the estate.

Head of Guest Experience

Saffron Lockhart

Saffron Lockhart joins The Davenport Grand from a series of senior guest relations roles at ultra-luxury hotels in London, St Moritz and the Maldives, where she was known for remembering the name of every guest and the birthday of every guest's dog. She leads a team that will number more than four hundred by opening and is the architect of the Davenport welcome, a seated, champagne-led arrival with no desk and no queue.

Saffron is responsible for the personal host programme, the butler service in the Presidential Suites and the training academy that will prepare every member of staff to deliver what she calls "the feeling of being the only person in the building".

Director of Planning and Community Relations

Rupert Hallworth

Rupert Hallworth has more than twenty-five years' experience in securing consent for landmark developments in sensitive settings across Spain and the United Kingdom. He led the planning process for The Davenport Grand from its first pre-application meeting to the granting of full consent in 2026, an achievement he attributes to patience, thorough preparation and an extensive programme of constructive dialogue.

Rupert now oversees the estate's relationships with local authorities, neighbours and community groups in the north of the island, and chairs the Davenport Grand Community Forum, which meets quarterly at Davenport House. He is a fluent speaker of Spanish and Catalan and a very good listener.

Head of Marine Life

Dr Kai Lindqvist

Dr Kai Lindqvist is a marine biologist with a doctorate in cetacean behaviour and more than fifteen years' experience in the care of dolphins in public aquaria and private marine parks in Scandinavia, Florida and the Gulf. At The Davenport Grand he is responsible for the design, operation and welfare standards of The Lagoon and the wellbeing of its six resident bottlenose dolphins.

Kai has personally overseen the specification of the Lagoon's seawater pipeline and filtration plant, the enrichment programme and the carbon-neutral certification of each animal. He will also lead the guest swim sessions and the educational programme for visiting schools from across the island.

Director of Aviation

Captain Grant Harlow

Captain Grant Harlow is a former military helicopter pilot with more than nine thousand flying hours, latterly as chief pilot to a number of private clients in the Gulf and the Côte d'Azur. As Director of Aviation he is responsible for the Skydeck helipad, the estate's private helicopter fleet and all private jet arrivals coordinated through Ibiza Airport.

Grant has developed the Skydeck's operating procedures, its solar-powered lighting system and the twelve-minute transfer that will make The Davenport Grand the most accessible inland destination in the Mediterranean. He also leads the estate's programme of sunset flights over the island.

Careers

Join the Davenport family

The Davenport Grand will create more than 1,800 permanent roles across hospitality, culinary arts, golf, marine care, aviation and estate management. Recruitment for senior positions is under way and is conducted privately. Expressions of interest may be sent in writing to the Davenport Corp office.

careers@davenportcorp.com