Crist Inman
Crist Inman
Facilities Management, Planning & Design
Email: ci11@cornell.edu
Primary Research Focus
Entrepreneurship (focused on social enterprises in the hospitality industry in developing economies), sustainable hospitality management (focused on best practices for conservation-focused firms), and sustainable tourism (focused on development strategy for emerging destinations that have pursued collective action in the interest of conservation)
Professional Biography
Crist Inman is the founder and CEO of La Paz Group, a Costa Rica-based company serving hospitality industry investors and governments in emerging destinations around the world. He founded the company as an outgrowth of the sustainable tourism development projects he led at the Center for Latin American Competitiveness and Sustainable Development starting in the mid-1990s. In 1999 he pioneered the field of property management under contract for conservation-focused hospitality businesses when his company took responsibility for the management of Lapa Rios and its nearly 1,000 acre private conservation area. In the decade since then, La Paz Group has worked on behalf of social entrepreneurs with increasingly larger conservation commitments (e.g. most recently the 150,000 acre Fortin Patria Reserve in the Pantanal region at the border between Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia) and increasingly smaller operational footprints (e.g. Patagonia Expedition Race and Geolodge). La Paz Group continues to offer strategic advisory services for emerging conservation tourism destinations, most recently in the wine regions of Mendoza, Argentina and Maule, Chile, and the nature frontier in Chile’s Patagonia & Antarctica regions. Crist is currently focused on the start up of two brands serving consumers whose purchase decisions for consumer goods and vacation experiences are strongly influenced by commitment to conservation: Organikos and World Heritage Resorts.
In addition to his industry work, Crist has maintained his link with academic institutions, teaching graduate and executive level seminars as a Visiting Faculty member at Cornell University, INCAE, and Instituto de Empresa. He is author of the forthcoming Entrepreneurial Conservation, a documentation of public policy and private investment innovations that have served the cause of conservation around the world in unique, fruitful ways, and which serve as a new model for emerging economies. His past work with academic colleagues has documented some of these dynamics in scientific journal articles, including Administrative Science Quarterly (1996); in book chapters published by Harvard University Press (2001); as well as in public policy media, including the United Nations Environment Program (1998) and United Nations Development Program (2004).
Academic Degrees
- Ph.D., Cornell University
- M.B.A., Cornell University
- B.A., Principia College
Industry Involvement
In addition to his work with La Paz Group, Dr. Inman has led executive development seminars for leading hotel chains including Accor, Marriott International, Intercontinental Hotels & Resorts; and was Keynote Speaker at the 2008 Resort Conference.