Ben Elliot: concierge to the super-rich and Zac Goldsmith's secret weapon

He’s the Old Etonian who has made a career catering to the whims of VIPs and millionaires. Now he wants to get his former school friend Zac Goldsmith elected Mayor. Nick Curtis meets Ben Elliot, Mr Fix-it to the super-rich
Nick Curtis @nickcurtis19 November 2015

So, I say to Ben Elliot, are you Zac Goldsmith’s secret weapon in his bid to become London Mayor? The royally connected 40-year-old — Camilla Parker Bowles’ nephew, and co-founder of Quintessentially, the global concierge service to the super-wealthy — hesitates. For the past few months that has been the word among those in the know; one newspaper report even claimed he’d been telling friends he was Goldsmith’s ‘unofficial campaign manager’.

‘Zac is one of my oldest friends and I would do anything I possibly could to help in terms of his campaign,’ says Elliot carefully, pouring tea. ‘Mark Fullbrook, [Australian electoral guru] Lynton Crosby’s business partner, and [Tory MP] Nick de Bois are the campaign managers. But Zac and I have known each other a really long time. We are godfathers to each other’s children, our parents were best friends, we went to the same schools at the same time.

Big Ben: Elliot is a close friend of Mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith

‘I believe he would make a magnificent Mayor. It will be down to the policies that both gentlemen’ — he means the candidates — ‘show next year. One thing I will say about Zac is this is a kid who, when young, had no ambition to do this sort of thing. But all he has done in his life is fight for things that he thinks are important. He has shown that as an MP, done stuff that is not popular. So to answer your question, I am not his “unofficial campaign manager”, but I am definitely a huge cheerleader.’

He certainly seems to know a lot about the bid. ‘The policy stuff you will see soon. There are three issues that Londoners care about most. One is the terrible housing problem. I think he will unlock a strategy to build lots of homes. You have to believe who is going to be the best to deliver that, him or Sadiq Khan. There are two other things the Mayor has direct responsibility for: our transport system — I’m sure both candidates would be sympathetic to Crossrail 2 — and policing, which central government is trying to cut by £1 billion… He also wants to make this the greenest city in the world, and for my children, your children, our grandchildren, those are noble ambitions.

‘He knows that he can count on me to stuff envelopes, knock on doors. I knocked on a lot of doors in both elections in Richmond.’ Did anyone tell you to sling your hook, annoyed at the sight of another privileged Tory campaigner? And isn’t it a problem for Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign that he’s yet another blond Etonian? ‘Zac is the antithesis of the professional politician — he’s a proper compassionate person. So the idea that somebody who’s led a cosseted life doesn’t understand the real problems people in this city have is unfair. I don’t think he is a “toff” in the way that people cast him.’

Still, an Old Etonian himself, Elliot acknowledges that it’s ‘weird’ we have an Etonian Prime Minister, Archbishop of Canterbury and both incumbent and would-be Mayor. ‘Justin Welby or the Mayor of London or the Prime Minister — was it Eton that got them there? No, it was they themselves that got there. But it is unhealthy for a country of nearly 70 million people, and I’m sure some people must feel uncomfortable and resentful.’

He has not put his sons’ names down for Eton: he and his wife Mary-Clare, a 28-year-old artist, have yet to decide where Arthur, three, and Ike, 11 months, will be educated. He and Mary-Clare met at an Eric Clapton concert, where her father, the musician Steve Winwood, was also performing, and married in 2011 at Winwood’s Gloucestershire home. Elliot’s cousin Tom Parker Bowles was best man. Ben and Mary-Clare used to spend weekends in Gloucestershire, Dorset, and at the Winwoods’ Nashville place, but since their children arrived they now spend most of their time at home in West London.

He insists that his Quintessentially clients don’t give a fig about his schooling — or the fact that his aunt is Prince Charles’ wife. Can this be true? Having spent the past decade and a half catering to rich people’s demands, come January the company will launch a new membership level, Quintessence, costing £50,000. For that you share a ‘manager’ with two or three other squillionaires, rather than 20 (which is what a £12,500 Elite membership, the average package, buys) but also, intriguingly, the chance to be ‘educated’ by your manager in the mores of British society. A manager might, for instance, steer their client away from the gold Ferrari or diamond-studded loo seat — the rich are no less rich but more circumspect since the recession.

Of course, when Elliot, Aaron Simpson and Paul Drummond launched Quintessentially back in 2000 they couldn’t have anticipated the sheer volume of wealthy individuals sloshing around London today. Initially it was a London-centric operation, offering the usual concierge services with a basic membership costing £250. Now the company operates in more than 60 cities, and has divisions specialising in property, art, wine… everything. The Chinese, says Elliot, are a particular growth area.

Some experiences Quintessentially has arranged for clients have passed into myth: closing Sydney Harbour Bridge for a marriage proposal; arranging dinner on an iceberg; flying Madonna’s teabags across the Atlantic. More recently it organised a Times Square flashmob to sing Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy’ to a member’s wife. ‘My wife would probably kill me if I did that,’ says Elliot.

Silver teaspoon: Mr Fix-it to the super rich

But there is another side to the operation — booking flights for members trapped by the 2010 ash cloud; supplying sandbags and medicines to those threatened by floods — that chimes with the Quintessentially Foundation that Elliot set up in 2008, which has raised £6m for charity. Earlier this month the Travels to My Elephant race saw Elliot, various family members and celebs, including Yasmin and Amber Le Bon, journey 500km across Madhya Pradesh by rickshaw. The race raised £1m towards creating safe corridors for elephants to migrate between national parks, through Elephant Family, the charity set up by Elliot’s uncle Mark Shand, who died last year. ‘My uncle was a life-enhancing figure in all of my family’s life,’ says Elliot. ‘When someone dies, you think, “What the hell can you do?” ’ The race ended at Kipling Camp where Shand spent many years with his beloved elephant Tara, and where the family scattered his ashes in the river.

Family is important to Elliot; he’s disciplined at carving out time to spend with Mary-Clare, Arthur and Ike. He paints himself as a homebody, happier at a local cricket match or on a bike ride than at a club or restaurant. The day we meet, he’s taking his elder son to ‘HMS Belfast and a circus with motorbikes, which he loves’. He credits his father Simon, a Dorset landowner, and his mother Annabel, an interior designer and antiques dealer, with fostering his entrepreneurial spark. ‘My parents had their own businesses and I saw the ups and downs of that — my father had a very difficult time in the early 1990s — but I always liked the idea of making my own decisions, being involved with something myself,’ he says. He used to put on magic shows as a boy, and was ‘inspired’ by a work placement at the Independent when he was 15.

He says that, like Shand (and, indeed, Goldsmith), he wants to ‘put something back’, whether that’s in the political or charitable arena. Fatherhood has changed his priorities, as has turning 40: ‘I was so anxious beforehand — you want to get as much out of life and give as much as possible. The abrupt death of my uncle was a big wake-up call. And a man who I adored — Miles Frost, the son of the late David Frost, — who I played tennis with every week, and who was eight years younger than me, went for a run and died. An amazing man, incredibly fit and healthy… you think, “F***.” And much more than turning 40, if you have kids, you have to be there to help them through things they will find difficult in the way my parents helped me, so you do subconsciously think [about mortality].’

Perhaps this is why, when I ask what luxury means to him, Elliot says: ‘I don’t think because something is expensive it’s good or luxurious. We can all think that Frette bed linen and The Beverly Hills Hotel would be marvellous, but going for a walk with family in a place you haven’t been to before can also be lovely. For me it’s about space and having time to reflect.’ And maybe, just maybe, to work out how to get your great friend Zac elected Mayor.

Portraits by Ian Derry

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