"Conversations with Alumni" - Gundeep Singh ’17

Alex Wright, a Junior at the Hotel School, recently had the opportunity to interview Gundeep Singh ’17.

Gundeep Singh is a graduate of the Cornell Nolan Hotel School Class of 2017 and is the former President of the Seattle-Pacific Northwest CHS Chapter. Growing up in New Jersey working with family in the hospitality industry, he developed an early appreciation for the field that made the Hotel School a natural fit. During his time at Cornell, he was actively involved in the Hotel School through his roles as Vice President for the Cornell Real Estate Club and Director of Technology for HEC 91. Strong mentorship, meaningful student leadership roles, and utilizing the hotel school’s robust alumni network ultimately guided him to BMGI (now Cascade Investment), where he began his career. Today, he continues to work alongside many fellow Cornell graduates and Hotelies at Cascade Investment, reinforcing the community that first shaped his professional path.

Gundeep consistently highlights the defining strengths of the Hotel School, emphasizing its close-knit community, intimate class sizes, and deeply rooted culture of giving back. He speaks highly of HEC as both a fun and challenging experience whose greatest value lies in the relationships it fosters. His commitment to CHS reflects his belief in sustaining the “flywheel” of alumni engagement and paying forward the support he received as a student. He notes that hospitality as a discipline permeates every industry and that the Hotel School equips graduates to think creatively, make data-driven decisions, and engage thoughtfully across a broad range of conversations. Amid today’s evolving market conditions, he encourages students to remain flexible, pursue generalist foundations, and fully leverage Cornell’s extensive resources.

Gundeep’s Cornell experience was also shaped by the personal relationships he built outside the classroom. As a member of the Cornell Bhangra team, he met some of his closest lifelong friends, including his college roommate and his wedding best man. Reflecting on his time on campus, he shared that if he were to return, he would sit in on more lectures to learn how leading academics think about the evolution of their fields of study, which is an opportunity he sees as one of Cornell’s most inspiring and underappreciated advantages.