JOHN W. RUTLEDGE
       Founder, President & CEO

A hotel-real estate entrepreneur and private equity investor, Mr. Rutledge is the Founder, President and CEO of Oxford Capital Group, LLC, a national real estate, private equity, asset management and investment firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.  He is also the Founder, President and CEO of its hotel operating affiliate, Oxford Hotels and Resorts.

Mr. Rutledge co-founded his first company, Oxford Realty Corporation at age 24.  He co-founded his second company, Oxford Capital Partners, Inc. during his second year of business school in 1994 while simultaneously completing an extended internship at the Wall Street mergers & acquisitions and merchant banking firm of Wasserstein Perella & Co.  His third company, Oxford Capital Group, LLC, a successor company to Oxford Capital Partners, Inc., was founded during the 2004-2006 timeframe.  

Oxford Capital was initially founded as a platform to take advantage of what he and a partner felt was a compelling secular arbitrage opportunity resulting from the dramatic overbuilding in the nation's property markets, particularly the lodging sector, in the early to mid-1990's.  Since that time, in two major contrarian buying waves, starting during the RTC crisis in the early 90's and again after the dotcom bubble burst / September 11^th, Oxford, its affiliates and principals have successfully sponsored, co-sponsored and/or participated in the investment, acquisition and/or development of approximately $2.5 billion of primarily hotel real estate, representing approximately $650 million in annualized revenues across approximately 12,000 hotel rooms and approximately 5,000 employees generating profits in excess of $600 million for its investors.

Notable Oxford led projects include The Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel-New York City and The Radisson Lexington Hotel-New York City, The National Conference Center-Lansdowne, VA, The Langham Chicago Hotel at the former IBM building, The Wyndham Chicago-Magnificent Mile, Hotel Felix-Chicago, the Hotel at 127 W. Huron-Chicago, Doubletree Hotel and Conference Center-Chicago North Shore, Renaissance North Shore-Chicago, Hyatt Summerfield Suites-Northwest Chicago, Hotel Cass-Chicago,  The Wyndham Wilmington Hotel, The Marriott Southeast Portfolio: Charleston, Columbia and Rock Hill, South Carolina and Matthews, North Carolina.  Oxford is also an investor in The Abbey Resort and Avani Spa- Lake Geneva, WI, and through an investee affiliate The Doubletree Hotel Magnificent Mile-Chicago.  Oxford was also an investor in The Pan Pacific Hotel-San Francisco, The Sir Francis Drake-San Francisco, The Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront and a portfolio of five Japanese hotels in Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Okinawa and Fukuoka.

In his role as angel/private equity investor he has invested in a number of emerging growth companies including AlphaMetrix, Argo Tea Inc., Aspen Club & Spa, Bobtail Ice Cream Co., Cal Pacific, Health Integrated, Inc., Homemade Pizza Company, Jamestown Assisted Living, Lakeshore Sport & Fitness, Metropolitan Capital Bank Corporation, Nymirum, Inc., Plymouth Real Estate Investors, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Room Service, Inc., Sunglass Outlet, Inc., Talk3, and Top Golf.

Mr. Rutledge was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award Finalist and was chosen as one of Crain's Chicago Business' "40 under 40", a select group of rising young Chicago area leaders.  He has been a guest judge at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business New Venture Challenge and a guest speaker at Northwestern's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management.  Mr. Rutledge is a member of: the advisory board (and a founding investor) of Metropolitan Capital Bank Corporation; the Young Presidents' Organization (YPO); the Economic Club of Chicago; the Auxiliary Board of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Advisory Board for the Polsky Center of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business; the board of the HomeMade Pizza Company; The Urban Land Institute (ULI); and the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago.  A graduate of New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, Mr. Rutledge graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and an emphasis in real estate.  He received his MBA from the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business with an emphasis in international finance and economics.  He has also studied at Northwestern University and Oxford University (Christ Church) in England.
A voracious reader, he is also a lover of biographical, business, social, architectural, political and military history, genealogy, art, cinema, classic boats, architecture, nutrition, sports of all kinds including: triathlons, sailing, helicopter skiing, barefoot waterskiing, tennis and platform tennis, squash (a little), golf (not very often or very well and thus least proficient sport), swimming, scuba diving and world (and often adventure) travel, with highlights including a trip to the North Pole, scuba diving off the great barrier reef of Australia, elephant trekking in the jungles of Thailand and Africa, skydiving in New Zealand, helicopter skiing in the Rockies and a "trip around the world" just before business school.