This fall, Cornell’s Baker Program in Real Estate welcomes its Class of 2018 to its Ithaca campus. The incoming class of 27 students (20 male, 7 female) is one of the most diverse in Baker’s history. 12 countries are represented: the United States, Canada, Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, Malaysia, Peru, and Thailand. The class has an average professional experience of approximately five years, with undergraduate degrees including architecture, biomedical engineering, accounting, global business, management, economics, industrial engineering, and entrepreneurship. To highlight the diversity of the incoming class, we have spotlighted three of our incoming students with varying backgrounds.
Rawinthira Narksusook
Bangkok, Thailand
Rawinthira comes to the Baker Program from Bangkok, Thailand, where she has worked for the past six years as a LEED AP BD+C architect focused on hospitality and commercial projects. Her experience includes two years with international architecture and consulting firm Woods Bagot, followed by three years with Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts. In this capacity, Rawinthira has designed hotels and luxury resorts in Thailand, China, Singapore, and South Korea. Rawinthira later formed a partnership in Bangkok that has designed multiple hotels and restaurants, including flagship Loog Choob hotel (meaning “rebirth”) in Bangkok that focuses on comfort and intelligent use of space. Following the Baker Program, Rawinthira hopes to return to her partnership practice and become a leading consultant in the hospitality real estate industry in Thailand, forming a clear pivot role between design and development. Rawinthira received her bachelor’s degree in architecture from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
Nick Morris
Dallas, Texas
Nick Morris enters the Baker Program with a financial background having spent the past five years as an analyst with Goldman Sachs’ subsidiary Archon Group and later as an associate in Goldman’s Realty Management Division. In this capacity, he was directly involved in the asset management of a portfolio consisting primarily of limited service hotels located throughout the United States, including performance review, budgeting, and creation and implementation of business plans. Nick enrolled in the Baker Program to pursue opportunities in real estate development. Nick completed his bachelor’s degree in real estate development at the University of Southern California.
Chris Baker
Miami, Florida
Chris Baker comes to the Baker Program from a background in healthcare consulting and biotechnology. He founded Blood Monitoring Solutions, a biomedical device start-up with the goal of reducing perioperative blood wastage and improving the blood delivery process to hospitals. He also spent three years in healthcare consulting at The Advisory Board Company where he advised large pharma clients on their health IT strategy in support of building brand relationships with health systems, as well as with Cerner, where he managed implementation of Cerner’s mobile application suite across entire health systems. Chris completed his undergraduate education at Vanderbilt University with a major in biomedical engineering and a minor in engineering management.
