Meet The Hotel Expert: Miguel Isla, CEO of Nômade People | Publisher Luxurylifestylemag 

Miguel Isla, CEO of Nômade People, began his hospitality career at the Ritz London at eighteen, working his way through operations before completing degrees in economics and hotel management at École hôtelière de Lausanne.

He co-founded Nômade People in 2021 alongside Antonio Sebastián and Barry Sternlicht, building a portfolio in Tulum and with two new European urban openings, Madrid and Ibiza, launching this year. He also runs PAG, the group’s investment arm, which acquires and develops the physical assets behind each property.

We sat down with Miguel to find out a little more.

Can you share a little about your journey so far, and what led you to becoming CEO of Nômade People?

I fell into hospitality almost by accident. At eighteen, I left Spain, abandoned an engineering degree, bought a ticket to London and ended up as a bar back at the Ritz. I spent four years working my way through the hotel while completing a business degree, before studying hotel management and investment at École hôtelière de Lausanne, shifting my focus from operations to ownership and advisory.

That path took me through CBRE, development projects in Istanbul, and eventually Mexico and the US. In 2020, while advising Barry Sternlicht, founder of W Hotels and Westin, I co-founded Nômade People with Bianke and Antonio Sebastián.

Antonio had created two extraordinary properties in Tulum centred on emotional wellbeing through music, art, scent and community. We brought the group together, navigated Covid-19, and returned stronger in 2021.

How would you define Nômade People – what’s the real essence or ‘spirit’ behind the brand?

At its core, Nômade is a three-dimensional hospitality concept. Most hotels operate on a single plane: you arrive, sleep, eat and leave. We’re creating something far more layered – a place where guests connect with each other, with artists and wellness practitioners, and with every detail of the space, from the scent in the corridors to the installations in the lobby. Everything is intentional.

We’re also proudly Latin. For us, that means warmth, personal connection and hospitality that feels genuine rather than formal. We’re not trying to compete with Aman or Four Seasons, although many of those guests find us. In Tulum, visitors from nearby luxury resorts came because they were looking for something different.

We like to champion female energy throughout the brand. We believe this is a defining era for women in hospitality, and our spaces – from communal hammams to spa evenings with DJs – are designed to celebrate connection, empowerment and joy.

Who is the Nômade guest right now? Has that profile evolved as the brand has grown?

Our guests are united less by a demographic than by a mindset. They are people who want to travel with purpose. Many of them are also consumers of the Ritz’s and the Four Seasons of the world; they haven’t abandoned traditional luxury, but they have the curiosity and the appetite to seek out something that stirs them differently.

We attract people from the tech world, the art world, and creative industries, but also more conventional luxury travellers who come to us looking for that spark.

What we really care about is the mix. Some of the more traditional luxury properties can feel a little… static. Guests don’t interact; the atmosphere becomes stiff. We want to shake that up. Our purpose – genuinely sparking emotional intelligence, reconnecting people with themselves – only works when there’s real energy in the room.

Was a career in hospitality something you always dreamt of?

Not at all and I think that’s actually part of what made it so compelling. I arrived at it sideways, through necessity and curiosity rather than plan. I had no romantic vision of becoming a hotelier.

What I did have was an instinct to understand how things work from the inside: once I was behind that bar at the Ritz, I wanted to know every department, every system, every decision. That hunger drove everything else.

I went from bar back to front of house to events to consulting to ownership. Each move felt less like a career choice and more like following the next interesting question. I never pictured myself as a CEO. Some days I still don’t quite believe it, but I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Building the right team is crucial for a property’s success. In addition to the key skills, what qualities or energy do you look for when building a team?

Autonomy is the thing I look for above almost anything else. I genuinely believe in the power of delegating real responsibility to people and letting them build their own vision within their department. If I’m dictating exactly what someone should do, I’m stopping them from flourishing. My job as CEO is to guide, to set direction, to bring everyone toward a shared north star, not to micromanage execution.

The hospitality industry can be quite square-minded. A lot of talented people have been trained in the Marriott or Hilton corporate mould, and that can create friction when they join us, because we operate from a completely different philosophy.

Some of them love that challenge; some struggle. That’s why we hire a lot of people from outside hospitality entirely, particularly in sales and marketing. We’re not selling rooms. The rooms are almost the amenity here; the common areas, the activations, the community, that’s the product.

Beyond autonomy, I look for genuine out-of-the-box thinking. People who are restless in the best sense, who find the conventional approach boring and want to reinvent things. More than where they’re from or what their CV says, that quality is what I’m really looking for.

Where do you feel most like yourself – what environments, moments or rituals bring you back to centre?

Honestly, I find it quite hard to switch off. My fiancée will tell you I’ve never taken a proper holiday. Even when I try, I end up meeting with a tourism director or getting genuinely absorbed by what’s happening culturally in a city. I’m curious about my industry in a way that doesn’t have an off switch.

That said, I think what grounds me is discovery: arriving somewhere new, being in an unfamiliar space, absorbing stimuli I couldn’t have imagined before I got there. Travel at its most raw is what fuels my creativity. Within our own properties, I find the moments of genuine human connection – a conversation at the bar, an unexpected interaction with an artist in residence – the most restorative of all. Those are the moments that remind me why we built this.

If someone is travelling with Nômade, where are you sending them for an inspiring city break; a memorable food experience; the ultimate wellness reset?

For a city break with real cultural depth, I’d send them to Madrid. The city has transformed in the last five to ten years into a genuine powerhouse: a Latin cultural hub that has drawn in an extraordinary international community while reconnecting with its underground roots. Our hotel sits in the middle of everything – walkable to the Golden Triangle of museums, right across from Malasaña, the city’s most characterful neighbourhood, and next to Chueca, which has incredible energy. A guest could lose a week just on foot.

For food, the Ibiza property puts you in remarkable proximity to some of the Mediterranean’s finest produce and we will have collaborations there that will take guests well beyond the hotel. For wellness in its most transformative sense, I’d argue neither of those answers is wrong.

Which cities are currently inspiring you most for their food, culture and sense of style?

Madrid is genuinely top of mind – watching it claim its place in the first rank of European cities in real time is remarkable.

I’m also paying close attention to New York, where we have a project in advanced stages, and Miami, which has an energy right now that’s hard to match.

Beyond that, Trancoso in Brazil is a place I find endlessly inspiring: a beautiful fishing village that has quietly become a gathering point for artists, celebrities, and culturally serious travellers – Brazil’s answer to Tulum or Ibiza. Marrakech has a quality of cultural intensity that I don’t think any European city can replicate. We are working on projects in these destinations, all of which genuinely excite me.

You’re celebrating two new openings this year – Nômade Temple Madrid in May and Nômade Temple Ibiza in July – your first foray into the European market. What drew you to those two very different destinations?

They’re different on the surface, but they share a deep coherence with who we are. We are a proudly Latin company, and Spain is, in many respects, the heart of the Latin world – the origin point of the culture, the language, the sensibility that we celebrate. So, both Madrid and Ibiza feel like a homecoming in that sense.

Madrid specifically is where I was born, which adds a personal layer. The city has undergone an extraordinary transformation. I wasn’t certain, when we first looked at the project, that the timing was right, but year after year as we developed it, our conviction only grew: Madrid was going to be important for Nômade.

Ibiza is a different proposition. It’s the elder sibling of Tulum in many ways and a deeply natural home for us.

We chose the north of the island deliberately, in Portinatx, right across from Six Senses, because we wanted to root ourselves in the wilder, more authentic side of the island.

The property itself was originally an unattractive all-inclusive from a previous era, but we saw in it a physical envelope we could completely reimagine – and we did. We punched walls, rebuilt from the inside, and the building now merges with the landscape in a way I think will genuinely astonish people when they see it.

If you could plan a one-day itinerary for guests looking to explore Madrid, where would you send them?

Start with the Prado: it’s one of the three or four greatest museums in the world and it’s virtually on our doorstep. Lose a morning there. Then walk across to Malasaña, which is just across the street from us: boutique shops, independent brands, a real neighbourhood energy that is nothing like the glossy commercial strips. If they’re in the mood for something more charged, Chueca is right there too, with extraordinary vitality.

For lunch or dinner, our own restaurants offer a strong starting point, but Madrid’s dining scene is exceptional. Head toward the historic Huertas and Lavapiés area for something more exploratory.

In the afternoon, El Retiro park is a fifteen-minute walk and a genuine sanctuary in the middle of the city. For the evening, come back to the hotel – we have programming happening most nights in the common areas, and Say No More, our private club downstairs, is a space like nothing else in the city.

Looking ahead, what’s next for Nômade People?

Ibiza opens on 1 July with a remarkable launch partnership with Mexicana, the celebrated Burning Man camp. Around 150 members of the community will be in residence for two weeks, helping co-create the opening.

Beyond that, we have projects underway in Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, Costa Rica, Guanacaste, Trancoso in Brazil, plus New York, Miami and Portugal, where we’re planning Lisbon and a beach club in Comporta.

What excites me most, though, is our technology. It will allow practitioners, artists and collaborators to book space, bring their communities, co-create experiences and generate income through our hotels.

I want Nômade to feel like it belongs to the people who bring it to life. The hotel room is the amenity; the co-creation is the product. Our ambition is to grow to around 20-25 carefully chosen destinations worldwide, prioritising quality and community over scale.

Find out more at nomadepeople.com.