Profile

Jameel Verjee

Founder & CEO
CityBlue Hotels (a member of The Diar Group)

Jameel was born and raised in England, where he read law at the London School of Economics. He qualified as a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England & Wales in 2001 and practised in the firm's London and Paris offices for five years. BLP was regularly voted UK Law Firm of the Year before its merger to become Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. Jameel decided to leave the law in order to go into business and set up several start-ups in the UK and Middle East before joining hands with some of his family’s interests, now consolidated under The Diar Group. Since 2010, Jameel’s focus shifted to sub-Saharan Africa and he entrepreneurially built CityBlue Hotels from inception in 2013. Over the past decade, CityBlue has become Africa’s fastest-growing local hotel chain with properties across five African countries and more than one thousand keys in the pipeline. CityBlue Hotels is known for its focus on five-star locations, affordability, service and technology across several sub-brands which incorporate business boutique hotels, midscale hotels, aparthotels and curated experiences. CityBlue Hotels is also the hospitality partner of the National Museums of Kenya, emphasising the group’s focus on culture and giving back to the community in which it operates. Beyond East and West Africa, CityBlue Hotels has also entered into a partnership with Dream Hotels & Resorts of South Africa and Mozambique, creating a pan-African sales and marketing platform to compete with the goliaths of the industry. In recent years, Jameel has been recognized one of the leading business “thought leaders” across the African continent and in 2023, he was awarded the “Creating Impact” award for Outstanding Contribution to Africa. He has subsequently been invited to join the Advisory Board of the Lagos Business School’s Hospitality Initiative. Jameel continues to lead CityBlue Hotels’ business with a clear plan for growth within Africa and beyond.