Elliott Bisnow

My Story

I'm an American entrepreneur and for 20 years I’ve been building businesses.

Sarara Camp

I’m a partner in Sarara, which manages four of the best safari lodges in Kenya. Our mission is to help conserve 850,000 acres of wilderness and support the Samburu community who own this land and co-exist with the wildlife. Join us and visit Reteti Elephant Sanctuary and the 30+ baby elephants that live there.

National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions (NASDAQ: LIND)

Since 2017, I've been on the board of National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions. We have a fleet of 17 ships exploring the planet's most fascinating places and offer 100 itineraries across every continent, all in partnership with National Geographic. If this is your first time traveling with us, we’d recommend a trip to Antarctica, Alaska or the Galapagos Islands!

Powder Mountain

From 2013 to 2023, I co-owned Powder Mountain Ski Resort in Eden, Utah. This was quite the journey and in 2023 we sold Powder Mountain to Netflix founder Reed Hastings.

Summit Series

I'm best known as the founder of Summit Series, which I started in 2008, when I was 22 years old. It feels hard to believe that the first event was only 19 people.  Since Summit started, we’ve hosted hundreds of events including Summit at Sea, Summit Outside, Summit Tulum, Summit Mountain Series & Summit LA.

Bisnow Media

At 20 (two years before starting Summit) I joined my dad as the first employee of Bisnow Media. My dad was working from our family home and I was in my college dorm room. We bootstrapped the business without raising any money, growing it into North America's largest commercial real estate media and events company. In 2016, we sold the company to the private equity fund Wicks Group.

Peak Street Management

I founded Peak Street Management, an investment company with no outside capital in 2016 and currently manage more than 50 investments in startups, mature businesses, and dozens of funds. I’ve had successful exits like Uber (Series B), Coinbase (Series B), Warby Parker (Seed), Allbirds (Seed), and Boll & Branch (Seed).

That's my story! You can read the best parts in a book I co-wrote with my Summit co-founders, "Make No Small Plans."