Isadore Sharp

Isadore Sharp is the founder, president and CEO of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.

By the time Sharp was sixteen he had lived in fifteen different houses. His father had his own home building concept, where he would build a house and move his family in during the last stages of construction. So it is not a surprise that "Issy" was working on construction sites with his father when he was very young.

In 1952, Sharp graduated from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute with a degree in architecture. After graduation he joined his father full time in the family construction business. The most exciting project for Sharp was when a client asked them to build a motel near the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition. It was then that Sharp decided that he wanted to build his own hotel. With the financial investments of his brother-in-law and friend, the first Four Seasons Hotel began to take shape.

Sharp's first hotel was located in a lower-class part of downtown Toronto. Sharp designed the hotel around an inner courtyard so that the guests would not have to look out at the surrounding shady neighborhood. The Four Seasons Motor Hotel opened in 1961 and with a cost of less than $1 million it was an immediate success. Under Sharp's leadership Four Seasons Hotels expanded slowly into the world class hotel company that it is today.

Four Seasons currently manages 44 luxury hotels in 18 countries, and has received the Five Diamond award from the American Automobile Association for the past eighteen years. Along with this most prestigious award, Four Seasons has also appeared on Fortune's list of the 100 best companies to work for in America.

"Issy's" philanthropic interests include supporting Israel and he plays a big role in the Terry Fox Run, an annual fundraiser that supports cancer research. To date the Fox Run has raised more than $220 million. The Sharps lost their son Christopher to melanoma cancer when he was seventeen. In 1983 he received the first Ruth Hartman Frankel Humanitarian Award in recognition for his work with the Terry Fox Run. Sharp has received numerous awards throughout his career, including CEO of the Year in 1992. In 1998 he was inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame, and most recently he received the International Distinguished Entrepreneur Award.

Sharp and his wife Rosalie reside in Toronto, Canada. The Sharps have three sons, none of whom have an interest in taking over their dad's job. Sharp still spends at least one day in each of his hotels meeting with his employees. Four Seasons Hotels is the extraordinary hotel that it is today because of "Issy" Sharp and his values.

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