JULY 20, 2026

Meet the Speaker: Ben Lilly

Founder and CEO, Giant Leap Digital

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Ben LillyOverlayBen Lilly

Luxury social and digital strategy
for premium hospitality brands

Ben Lilly is the Founder and CEO of Giant Leap Digital, a London consultancy that helps luxury and finance brands reach affluent, high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth audiences through social, creative, media and data.

He is one of the leading voices on luxury digital strategy and wealth-audience marketing, with two decades of senior agency experience behind him. His experience maps directly onto the challenge premium hospitality now faces: building desire, reaching the right audience and proving a commercial return, all at once.

Few speakers can offer that vantage point. Ben works with brands where reputation and performance both have to hold, which is the balance every hospitality leader in the room is trying to strike.

About Ben

Ben has spent the past twenty years on the boards of leading digital agencies in the UK and internationally. Before founding Giant Leap Digital, he built and sold Verb Brands, a global luxury digital agency, to Croud. A recognised thought leader in the high-net-worth space, he has made a specialism of helping luxury and finance brands connect with wealth audiences and turn digital strategy into lasting value.

At Giant Leap, Ben leads a consultancy built around senior expertise rather than agency layers, a hand-selected network of more than 50 senior specialists across strategy, creative, media, data, technology and brand. Clients get serious capability without losing agility, and they work only with people who have done this before, at this level.

The work rests on four pillars: Creative, Media, Data and Innovation. In luxury, that combination is the point. Content cannot only be beautiful, media cannot only be efficient, data cannot only be technical and innovation cannot only be a trend. They have to move together, and always in service of the brand.

Why Ben belongs at the Summit

The Summit exists to reposition social media as a commercially accountable function for hospitality brands. Ben brings a luxury lens to that.

He understands how affluent audiences behave online, how to reach them without making a brand feel mass-market, and how data can sharpen luxury marketing rather than flatten it. He is doing this for prestigious brands now, which is why it lands with an audience facing the same questions.

A rare chance to learn directly from Ben Lilly

Hospitality teams rarely get direct access to the people shaping digital strategy for luxury, finance, wellness, yachting and high-end lifestyle brands. At the Summit, they do.

Ben will take delegates into the questions luxury brands are wrestling with right now:

How do you reach more valuable audiences without diluting the brand?

How do you use data without making luxury feel mechanical?

How do you make social commercially useful, not just good to look at?

These are the problems Ben and the Giant Leap team work on every day.

In Ben's words

"The hospitality industry is entering a new era where social media influences every stage of the guest journey, from inspiration and discovery through to booking, advocacy and long-term loyalty. At the same time, luxury brands face increasing pressure to produce more content, embrace AI and demonstrate measurable return on investment, all without compromising the exclusivity and craftsmanship that define their brands.

At Giant Leap Digital, we believe the future belongs to hospitality businesses that combine creativity with commercial thinking. Social media should never exist in isolation; it should support wider business objectives, strengthen brand positioning and create experiences that audiences genuinely want to engage with.

I'm excited to join the Hospitality Social Media Summit because it brings together senior leaders who are focused on solving real business challenges, not chasing trends. I hope to share practical frameworks, lessons from working with luxury hospitality brands, and actionable ideas that delegates can take back to their own organisations and implement immediately."

Behind every exceptional campaign

Behind Ben's work sits a simple conviction: digital should move the numbers that matter, and never at the brand's expense.

That principle runs through Giant Leap's work across luxury hospitality, wellness, yachting, finance, property and lifestyle, with clients including Corinthia Hotels, Chenot, Sanlorenzo, Auriens Chelsea, Payoneer, Lace, L&C Interiors, Valangin Brenets, Ancasta and The Glenrothes.

Corinthia Hotels

Corinthia Hotels

Organic and Paid Social

CHENOT

CHENOT

Branding

SANLORENZO

SANLORENZO

Programmatic Advertising

AURIENS CHELSEA

AURIENS CHELSEA

Technical SEO, Organic Social Media, PPC

Proof it works: Chenot

Hospitality work

When the global wellness brand Chenot set out to grow its digital presence in 2025, it needed luxury storytelling to translate into real commercial return. Giant Leap rebuilt its paid ecosystem around wealth-audience segmentation and reshaped its social identity around its core pillars. Paid and organic worked as one, and the results followed:

267

per cent increase in direct bookings

100

per cent increase in website traffic after launch

Stronger first-
party data

to fuel future growth

This is the calibre of thinking Ben brings to the Summit: not theory, but campaigns that prove what commercially grounded social can do for a luxury brand.

What delegates will take from Ben

  • How to connect social activity to commercial outcomes
  • How to define the right audience before choosing the channel
  • How to use data to sharpen luxury work rather than flatten it
  • How to bring AI and innovation in on the brand's terms
  • How to make social part of the business strategy, not a side activity

The best brands will not win by posting more. They will win by knowing who they are trying to reach, what those audiences value, and how each touchpoint builds desire and
demand.

Award-winning luxury expertise

Under Ben's leadership, Giant Leap Digital has been recognised for the quality of its luxury digital work.

Best Luxury Digital Marketing Agency 2026, London, LUXlife

Best High End Digital Marketing Agency 2025, UK

Most Innovative Luxury Digital Marketing Agency 2024, LUXlife

See Giant Leap
Digital
at HoSS

The Hospitality Social Media Summit takes place September 3–4, 2026 in London

Places are limited to ensure every attendee receives personalised strategy attention.

Join us in London or online

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