NIC Executive Leadership

Ray Braun

President & CEO

As NIC’s president, Ray Braun oversees overall strategy, volunteer leadership governance, organizational performance, culture, and mission delivery.
Prior to joining NIC, Mr. Braun served as the Dean of the Allen W. and Carol M. Schmidthorst College of Business at Bowling Green State University where headed all aspects of the college’s vision, strategic direction, planning, operations, and budgeting. Prior to his deanship, Mr. Braun served as the president and CEO of Cogdell Spencer and president of Health Care REIT, Inc. (now Welltower) where he was inducted into the Stifel Nicolaus Senior Housing & Healthcare Real Estate Hall of Fame.

Additionally, Mr. Braun served as a board member to NIC during 2000 – 2007 serving as its chair for the last two years of his term. During his term, he served as the NIC MAP Task Force Co-chair, helping to bring data transparency to the sector.

Mr. Braun holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting & Economics from Bowling Green State University.

Chuck Harry

Chief Operating Officer

As NIC’s Chief Operating Officer, Chuck oversees and guides NIC’s market outreach and education, research and analytics, as well as the event programming and logistics, and corporate communications and marketing. Prior to joining NIC in 2010, Chuck worked at Cushman & Wakefield, where he held the positions within its Global Capital Markets Group of Managing Director, Investment Strategies, and Managing Director, Analytics.

His 30+ year career is comprised of institutional investment management across various commercial real estate property types with an emphasis on the apartment/multifamily sector. Early on, he helped solidify the apartment sector as one of the core property types for institutional investors. At the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF), where he was Director of Real Estate, Chuck expanded the association’s product lines with new indices and developed public outreach as well as market education programs. At Cushman & Wakefield, in addition to forecasting and monitoring economic and real estate market trends, he helped establish global infrastructures to facilitate cross-border transactions and the firm’s emerging investment management operations.

Chuck received his Master of Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received a Bachelor of City Planning from the University of Virginia, School of Architecture.

Lisa McCracken 

Head of Research & Analytics  

Lisa oversees NIC’s research and analytics team, which develops actionable, data-driven insights on industry challenges and opportunities and showcases practical examples of how organizations nationwide are embracing opportunities to meet the demands of a changing marketplace. Additionally, Lisa oversees a robust research agenda with nationally recognized partners to help the next generation of senior housing and care leaders address evolving and dramatically different consumer preferences and needs. 

Prior to joining NIC, Lisa served as director of senior living research and development with Ziegler, a leading investment bank for senior housing and care, where she oversaw research staff supporting the senior living, senior housing, and related corporate finance healthcare practices. Lisa began her career as a research analyst at Holleran, a healthcare and aging services research and consulting firm, where she was successively promoted to become vice president of research, managing partner and ultimately president between 2009 and 2013. 

She is a nationally recognized thought leader and public speaker and has been the lead researcher on a number of national research studies such as the LeadingAge Ziegler 200 and other industry-wide publications. 

Robert G. Kramer

Co-founder & Strategic Advisor

Bob Kramer is Co-founder, former CEO, and now Strategic Advisor at the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC).  Mr. Kramer is also Founder and Fellow at Nexus Insights, a think tank advancing the well-being of older adults through innovative models of housing, community and healthcare. He is broadly recognized as one of senior living’s most influential and high profile thought leaders and connectors.  With over 35 years of industry leadership, he has earned the reputation of “agent provocateur” in the senior housing and care industry.  He has been described as an “ice-cutter” and scout in identifying industries and trends that will disrupt the future of senior housing, aging services, and aging more broadly.

In 1991, Mr. Kramer co-founded NIC to advance access and choice in senior housing and care by attracting capital to grow the sector.  Under his leadership, NIC became the go-to resource for data and analytics for the rapidly expanding senior housing and care industry and an acknowledged thought leader for new ideas and trends impacting the provision of housing, services and care for older adults.  Mr. Kramer stepped out of the CEO role in 2107 and continues to serve NIC as Strategic Advisor.

In 2019, Mr. Kramer conceived of and championed “The Forgotten Middle,” a landmark study of the health and socioeconomic status of middle-income adults who will be 75+ in 2029 and their ability to afford private pay senior housing.  The report on the study, published in Health Affairs, was the 5th most read article appearing in this leading health policy monthly journal in 2019.

In April 2020, Mr. Kramer launched Nexus Insights to “rethink aging from every angle.”  The organization engages a network of leading thinkers and thinking leaders to create and champion bold ideas and actionable models to catalyze the next generation of housing, community, health, and engagement for and with older adults. In March, he received the 2023 McKnight’s Pinnacle Career Achievement Award for his enduring contributions to the senior housing and long-term care field.

A former county government official and Maryland state legislator, Mr. Kramer was a leader on health and environmental issues while representing the state capital of Annapolis in the 1980s. Mr. Kramer was educated at Harvard and Oxford Universities and holds a Master of Divinity degree from Westminster Theological Seminary.

 
 
 
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