Chris Tivey

Resort brands, vision and sales strategy

A graduate of Sheridan College in Marketing & Design, Chris Tivey spent the first 25 years of his career as a Creative Director. He founded three successful marketing firms: Ideation in Vancouver and Toronto, The Hathaway Group in Toronto, and Envisioning & Storytelling (E&S) in Vancouver. His teams created campaigns for clients including Intrawest Resort Development, General Motors, Estée Lauder Cosmetics, Kraft General Foods, Air Canada and Expo 86.

Beginning in 1995, alongside the co-founding of E&S Vancouver, Chris focused exclusively on resort development projects for the next 13 years. From 1995 to 2000, he was based in Vancouver and consulted primarily for Intrawest Corporation on village developments at Squaw Valley, California; Whistler, British Columbia; Mammoth Mountain Village, California; Panorama Village, British Columbia; and Snowshoe Mountain Village, West Virginia. His team worked on long-term envisioning, marketing and sales strategies, onsite sales facilities and branding.

In 2000, Chris joined Star Resort Group (SRG) in Scottsdale, Arizona, as Chief Marketing Officer, serving for seven years. SRG specialized in developing, selling and marketing Private Residence Clubs in the U.S., with projects in Lake Tahoe, California; Park City, Utah; Stowe, Vermont; Pinehurst, North Carolina; and Durango, Colorado, among others.

Chris founded Gravity Destination Properties, Inc. in 2008. Gravity managed sales and marketing for Saguaro Ranch, a 1,500-acre, $600 million project in Tucson, Arizona, and Mission La Serena in Los Cabos, Mexico. Chris also served as a senior consultant to Loreto Bay, a residential and resort development spanning more than 1,000 acres in Mexico. The subsequent 2009 market crash brought these projects to a standstill, as it did many comparable developments across the U.S.

Over the next two years, Chris negotiated a 30-year global license with the PGA TOUR for THE PGA TOUR CLUB, a private leisure club offering member and corporate experiences. He raised the necessary funding from Club Holdings, LLC in Denver, Colorado, and successfully sold the business in 2011.

Chris is developing a Golf Lodge on the Jack Nicklaus Course, Pinehurst No. 9, in Pinehurst, North Carolina, and serves as a senior marketing consultant to tech startup IZON Digital Media Network.