BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Jennifer Baker, Director of Athletics & Recreation at Johns Hopkins University, appears as a guest on the 1.Question Leadership Podcast to talk about having a direct line of communications to the country’s leading hub for information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
She discusses how her background in the military and in engineering helps her during her first year as AD in terms of applied problem solving. Baker also covers being creative in finding ways for the Student-Athletes to practicing leadership while at home.
Appointed the Director of Athletics and Recreation at Johns Hopkins on August 6, 2019. Baker had served as Hopkins’ Senior Associate Director of Athletics since September 2017.
Baker has been an integral member of the department’s senior-leadership team since her arrival at JHU. She has overseen the day-to-day operation of the Department of Athletics with oversight in the planning, development and management of all fiscal and administrative operations. As such, she has directed all revenue-generating initiatives and short and long-term budget planning for Johns Hopkins’ highly successful 24-sport varsity athletic program.
In addition, Baker has served as the sport administrator for the Blue Jay women’s lacrosse, football, men’s and women’s basketball and women’s soccer programs while also providing administrative support for men’s lacrosse. She led the search to fill Johns Hopkins’ head football coaching position in early 2019 and has been actively involved in the hiring of two other head coaches, several assistant coaches and a number of staff members in athletics and recreation.
Among her many key initiatives at Johns Hopkins has been the launching of a unique leadership development program for Johns Hopkins student athletes (Blue Jays LEAD). The Blue Jays LEAD program made its debut in 2017-18 with a mission of empowering student-athletes to actualize the leader within and inspire action in their communities at Johns Hopkins and beyond.
Baker came to Johns Hopkins from Under Armour, where she served as a Senior Manager of Corporate Real Estate, Facilities and Operations. She was responsible for the daily operation of all UA facilities at its nearby Port Covington headquarters and provided support to all UA offices outside of Baltimore. That support included new facility activation, vendor relationships and energy management. One of Baker’s key initiatives at UA was the activation of the company’s newest offices in San Francisco and Portland.
Prior to her time at Under Armour, Baker spent three years at Cornell University, where she ascended to the position of Associate Director of Athletics for Facilities and played an integral role in the oversight of all internal department operations as a member of the senior leadership team. She was responsible for all athletic facilities, and integral in the budgeting, planning and programming of all related projects.
During her time at Cornell, Baker also designed and developed the Big Red Leadership Institute (BRLI), a program for more than 500 student-athletes across all 37 varsity athletic teams at the school. The BRLI delivered key leadership concepts set in the athletics context with a mission of building confident leaders and followers who provided immediate impact to their teams and communities.
With the BRLI, Baker implemented five separate, but complementary, proprietary developmental curricula for five distinct student cohorts (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, non-captain seniors and captains). Each group moved through a unique curriculum designed specifically for their class year and corresponding level of influence and responsibility.
Baker is a co-founder of Athletics Leadership Consulting (ALC), whose mission is to make leadership development accessible to all athletes, coaches and organizational support staff. ALC leverages athletics as a tool for leadership education as it designs and delivers original content that allows athletes to develop leadership and teamwork skills as an integrated component of their competitive experience.
A Baltimore area native, Baker graduated from the United States Naval Academy with a degree in aerospace engineering and was a member of the Academy’s women’s lacrosse club team. After the Naval Academy, Baker spent seven years in the Navy, including three years as a pilot and four as a construction manager and facilities engineer. She later earned an Masters of Business Administration (MBA) and a master’s in mechanical engineering from Cornell.
