Jake Phipps

Jake Phipps is Founder and CEO of Phipps & Co. Born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. Mr. Phipps was first introduced to the hospitality industry at age 20, when he began to run events in nightclubs, restaurants, and hotels across New York City. After recognizing the problems they seemed to be having with their supply chain over the course of several years, Mr. Phipps decided there was one way to solve the problem—take responsibility for it. As a result, he moved to China, taught himself Mandarin and set up an office in Guangzhou to manage the factories properly, armed with the knowledge of the problems faced by buyers in the marketplace.

Phipps & Co. now has offices in Guangzhou China, Istanbul, Ho Chi Minh, Italy, New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, and supplies nationwide. Phipps & Co. has direct partnerships with factories around the world such as Turkey, Portugal, Philippines, Vietnam, Belarus and Italy. The Phipps team has now been established for 20 years with a staff of project managers, CAD specialists, and a quality control team in place.

In 2009, Mr. Phipps moved back to New York to oversee the local office and work more closely with his clients on their projects. In addition to nightclubs and restaurants, the business has grown to supply hospitality, residential, and commercial projects. In early 2014, Jake’s company – BCD, formerly known as Buy China Direct—merged into Phipps & Co., a newly formed Women Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) entity with manufacturing capabilities on both the international and domestic fronts. Phipps and Co. provides world class manufacturing of factory direct, value engineered, and custom interior finishes and building materials.

Mr. Phipps serves on the Board of Directors of Holonis, a social commerce platform focused on social media and e-commerce as well as the Advisory Board of The Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship at Cornell University.

Mr. Phipps’ years of experience dealing with import and export and manufacturing have made him an expert and the go-to person when it comes to quality products for large scale projects in the hospitality, residential and commercial industry.