Revenue Manager
Strong leadership transforms a regional portfolio and introduces a public company to new technology.
Laurie Baker inherited the two toughest markets in Camden Property Trust’s portfolio when she became regional vice president for Houston, Austin, and Corpus Christi, Texas, last year.
“The silver lining was that it provided me the opportunity to review all aspects of operations,” says Baker, who just sneaks into this year’s list of rising stars who are 40 years old and under. (Baker turns 41 later this month.) As part of that, she did monthly goal-setting at both the community and individual levels and reviewed the results at weekly staff meetings.
“Each week we surpassed our goals and quickly started the trend upward in all areas being measured,” she says. “The team members became energized by their own successes. We are still in distressed markets, but the bar has been raised, and everyone has risen to the occasion.”
After one year under Baker’s leadership, overall occupancy at her properties rose from the high 80-percent range to 96 percent. “She took a group that had spent two years talking about what they couldn’t accomplish and changed the attitude of an entire region,” says Keith Oden, Camden’s president and COO. “Her communities are clearly outperforming the market now.”
All this from someone who started in finance, overseeing several support departments, including ancillary services, purchasing, real estate taxes, and security. But Baker’s performance caught the eye of management, and when the regional vice president spot opened, Oden recruited her.
“I liked her ability to understand the importance of team play,” Oden says, who believes this quality is particularly valuable on the operations side. “People in operations are skeptical about allowing other groups to help them,” he says.
Oden was confident Baker could disarm any skeptics with her infectious optimism and her ability to “understand how to get all the pieces of the puzzle put together in a way that ensure success.” He also liked the fact that she started her career in the medical business, not multifamily. “She came without the old biases and preconceptions,” he notes. “She’s curious and brings an outsider’s perspective. Laurie questions everything.”