With the prestigious Ivy League known to offer top-notch education, elites with a business family background are flocking to the U.S. universities to gain an edge when they themselves inherit the family business.

One Ivy institution located by the natural waterfalls in New York is especially known for its hotel management curriculum: Cornell. Graduates of Cornell University with a major in hotel management are known to dominate the hotel industry.


Of Cornell hotel management graduates, Korean alumni as third-generation chaebol -- family owners of Korean conglomerates -- are actively partaking in their family hotel business. As is tradition to pass the hotel business down to daughters of the family, a new tradition of gaining acceptance to Cornell University as the first step to receive the hotel business is emerging.

One third-generation chaebol daughter to follow the old and new tradition is Korean Air former vice president Cho Hyun-ah, the eldest daughter of Hanjin Group chairman Cho Yang-ho. 


After graduating from Seoul Arts High School, Cho Hyun-ah studied hotel management at Cornell University and later worked at Korean Air, an airline subsidiary of Hanjin, from 1999. Working her way up, she become the director of the Korean Air Lines Hotel Network, a hotel subsidiary of Hanjin Group, in 2007, and was promoted to vice president of in-flight services of Korean Air as well as the KAL Hotel Network in 2014.

However, due to the notorious nut rage incident that angered the public in December that year, she resigned from all executive roles.

The incident took place when Cho ordered a plane departing from New York to Seoul to return to the departing airport to leave the manager of the cabin crew behind after she was unsatisfied with cabin service, having been served nuts in a bag instead of on a plate.

She was later sentenced to a year in prison on charges of interfering with aviation safety.

Cho currently owns 2.49 percent of shares of Korean Air and KAL Hotel Network holding company Hanjin Kal, 0.03 percent of Hanjin Co. and 27.7 percent of Uniconverse, a call center subsidiary of Hanjin Group that is 100 percent owned by Cho and her two younger siblings.

According to financial information company FN Guide, Cho Hyun-ah’s stocks of listed Hanjin Kal and Hanjin are worth a combined 23.9 billion won ($20.7 million).

The eldest daughter of the Mirae Asset Group owner family is also anticipated to receive the group-owned Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul.

Park Ha-min, eldest daughter of Mirae Asset Group chairman Park Hyeon-joo, is also a graduate of Cornell.

Although not a hotel management major graduate, Park Ha-min studied history at Cornel before working at McKinsey & Company and CBRE Group for a year each before joining Mirae Asset Global Investments in 2013. She learned about hotel investments while working in the international real estate investment department of the Mirae firm. She is now in the U.S. to continue her studies.

Mirae Asset Global Investments under Mirae Asset Group has a 60 percent stake in the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul. Chairman Park built the hotel through a Mirae Asset Global Investments real estate fund worth 530 billion won from 2012 and entrusted the hotel operation to luxury hotel brand Four Seasons.

With Park investing in the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney, Australia in 2013, cooperation between Mirae Asset and Four Seasons began.

Holding an 8.1 percent stake of unlisted Mirae Asset Consulting, Park Ha-min holds 53 billion won in stock wealth. Mirae Asset Consulting holds 14.1 percent of shares of Mirae Asset Capital, the de facto holding company for Mirae Asset Group.

There are also instances of the hotel business being passed down to chaebol sons.

Aju Group’s third-generation Moon Yoon-whe is a Cornell hotel management alumni as well.

Moon, who is the son of Aju Group chairman Moon Gyu-young, is currently the CEO of Aju Hotels & Resorts, the holding company for Aju Group’s hotel business.

Moon currently holds unlisted stocks from Aju Global and Aju Frontier, the Aju Group subsidiaries that specialize in real estate and natural resources development, respectively.



By The Korea Herald Superrich Team (seoyounglee@heraldcorp.com)
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Hong Seung-wan
Cheon Ye-seon
Lee Sun-young
Yoon Hyun-jong
Min Sang-seek
Lee Seo-young