BDE

Benjamin
Earley

Operator and buyer of businesses New York, NY
Benjamin Earley leaning on a stone pillar in a garden

I've spent twelve years running hotels and rentals for owners, and this year I started buying businesses of my own.

BACKGROUND
Finance, then shoes, then hotels.

I started in finance. J.P. Morgan hired me out of Tulane in 2009, and I spent five years in asset management, first in New Orleans and then on a multi-asset portfolio team in New York.

In 2013 I co-founded Paul Evans, a men's shoe brand made by a family factory in Naples and sold straight to customers. It reached $4mm in annual sales by Year 3 and shipped to more than 100 countries.

That same year I started renting apartments in New York to business travelers. The side project became HOLT. My wife Ioana closed her restaurant in 2018 to run operations, and today HOLT runs 150+ properties and five hotels across the US, Mexico and Europe with a team spread over eight countries.

Square Park Capital is the investment side. It buys and develops the buildings HOLT runs, from a 120-year-old hacienda in Oaxaca to a historic monument in Bucharest's Old Town.

WORK
HOLT Co-founder · 2013–View → Square Park Capital Founding partner · 2018–View → Paul Evans Co-founder · 2013–17View →
J.P. Morgan
Asset Management · 2009–14
Saintly
Founder · 2016–20
Rose & Basil
Co-owner · 2017–18
Tulane
Freeman School of Business
Ben and Ioana laughing on a street in San Miguel de Allende Ben crouching with his French bulldog Black and white portrait of Ben Ben and Ioana on a street corner

Let's talk

Emailbenjamin@squareparkcapital.comX@earley_benjaminLinkedInin/bearley
© 2026 Benjamin Earley New York, NY