Hotelier & Designer, Kalukanda House
2023 DEI Champion Award Highly Commended 🎉
Dee Gibson is a multi-award-winning London-based hotelier. She left a decade career in finance and spent 20 years as a designer, ultimately building a boutique hotel in Sri Lanka in 2017. Kalukanda House is a design-led destination, known for curating bespoke and consciously crafted experiential holidays with social impact. Kalukanda House was recently listed in Conde Nast’s Best Places to Go in 2024, with a female empowerment retreat program being noted as a reason to visit. In 2023 Dee started an initiative to raise the profile of Sri Lankan female founders and held the first event of its kind on the island, putting Sri Lankan women on the stage. She is Deputy Chair of a Sri Lankan charity, a mentor and speaker and is passionate about reframing luxury travel to represent a fair intersection between travel, design and community impact.
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These awards are a huge testament to the work that is done by women changing the face of travel across the world. At a macro and a granular level, an army of dedicated, clever and innovative people committed to serving their communities and clients are keeping the art of travel alive, honest and socially conscious. I was deeply honoured to be Highly Commended in 2023 as a DEI company champion, – a way to celebrate our mission, vision and the team behind the business that makes us effective and successful. I encourage you to take a good look at your business and these awards and enter; by doing so you are raising the profile of your business and our wonderful industry that does so much good for the world.