We send this issue to press with much pride and a little trepidation. On the following pages you will read stories of hundreds of women who have made their mark in commercial real estate through many praise-worthy accomplishments. Getting on this list was not easy, in no small part because there were so many quality applicants to consider. But here they are despite the fact that the industry has long been seen as one primarily dominated by men.

Ideally, the path forward would be more of the same for these and other women who strive for achievement in our space: hard work and recognition when it is due. But that path has clouded somewhat in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in higher education – a decision that is expected to reverberate in corporate corridors. We remain hopeful, though, that women will continue, through their grit and determination, to reach the upper echelons of commercial real estate firms and be recognized for their achievements.

Now, let us celebrate this year’s selection of Women of Influence and the hard work that it took them to get here.

ARCHITECT / DESIGN PROFESSIONAL KELLY FUNK IA Interior Architects managing director and principal Kelly Funk oversees the operations of the firm’s Philadelphia studio, which she opened in 2018. She is a published thought-leader and public speaker known for her expertise in design, strategy and team management with a focus on culture. Her presentations have focused on a wide range of topics, from the use of virtual reality in design and change management to progressive topics in architecture and real estate. Funk’s career began as a designer, and she quickly transitioned to a senior strategist before she took on her current role. She majored in interior design and minored in architecture and then pursued a certificate in data visualization from NYU School of Professional Studies. She took courses toward the Predictive Analytics Certificate from the UC Irvine Division of Continuing Education, which helped her develop the analytical skills necessary to identify patterns and trends in big data. She achieved an NCIDQ certification, demonstrating her proficiency in design principles and her commitment to the profession.

ALI GAGLIARDO Ali Gagliardo knew she wanted to do something creative with her life, but her career path took many turns before she found her way to the student housing sector, where she got her start in multifamily design. From a gig in the flooring industry to working on lavish night clubs to designing palatial single-family residences in exotic places, Gagliardo’s many career iterations have led her to design award-winning residential projects. She joined Cooper Carry in 2016 as its sole residential interior designer and has been instrumental in expanding the interior design group to 15 designers. As an associate principal and project manager, she functions as the lead designer and project manager on multifamily projects and oversees an average of 20 to 30 projects at a time. Gagliardo has also started to grow and build other sectors of design at the firm including the student housing and senior living studios. During the past year, her group has brought in more than $1 million in revenue for the firm.

SARAH LADNER GOMEZ Sarah Ladner Gomez began her time at Hill West Architects 11 years ago as a project manager, but she quickly stood out because of her exceptional knowledge and understanding of building code. During her tenure, Ladner Gomez has mastered all project phases, from concept and zoning to construction administration and building. Due to this, she was appointed director of accessibility and code, for which she leverages her expansive knowledge of various codes and is skilled at cross-referencing between various requirements. She reviews projects in all phases of production for compliance with New York City Building Code, with a particular emphasis on accessibility, including Fair Housing and UFAS requirements. Described as hard-working and approachable, Ladner Gomez joins project teams on an ad-hoc basis during various project phases to guide them through difficult integration of code and accessibility requirements.

NAN LOUDON Senior managing director Nan Loudon oversees Cushman & Wakefield’s project development services group in Atlanta, managing a team of 25 project managers and support staff located throughout Atlanta and the Southeast region. Delivering more than 1.5 million square feet of commercial interior projects annually, Loudon’s group is recognized as one of the market’s largest and most active project management groups. Her 30-plus years of commercial interior project management experience gives her the in-depth knowledge required to help clients balance design, functionality, budget and schedule in a manner that consistently generates savings of 5% to 10% of the total project costs. She prides herself on providing excellent service to her clients and maintaining long-term relationships that span decades. For example, she has worked with AT&T for her entire 30-year career. She joined Cushman & Wakefield from Carter, where in 1988 she established that firm’s interior project management discipline. During the years, she has become recognized as Atlanta’s premier project manager, particularly in large and complex corporate and law firm work environments.

AMY MORWAY Amy Morway strives to create a workplace where all ideas are worth evaluating and employees can pursue their creative vision. While her leadership style is relaxed and positive, she leads by example and works as hard as any other person at ID Studios Inc. With more than 35 years in the interior design industry, she has extensive skills and freely shares what she knows. Employees at all levels turn to her for mentorship, and she has helped many improve their craft and become superstars in customer relations, business development, team management and presentation skills. As founding principal of ID Studios, Morway manages all aspects of daily operations including strategic planning, human capital, client relations, business development and financial management of the firm. As a hands-on leader, she oversees many of ID Studios’ projects. During the past year, Morway helped bring 45 new projects into the office for a total of more than 1.5 million square feet that will be improved. Morway was recognized as one of the 2022 Top Women in Architecture by the San Diego Business Journal.

SMITA SAHOO In 2020, with nearly 20 years of experience, Smita Sahoo launched luxury interior design and architecture firm āśaya | DESIGN. As owner, founder and creative director, she has built and grown the company in Chicago, working with high-end developers and contractors in office, multifamily and hospitality to create sustainable design concepts driven by innovation. Her firm’s mission is to produce projects that positively impact a client’s brand equity from an economic, social, cultural and environmental perspective, employing social entrepreneurship as a top pillar. Sahoo’s signature creations are largely influenced by her diverse background in architecture, interior design, environmental psychology and sustainability, and they blend design innovations of the West paired with timeless elements of the East. Sahoo has luxury projects near completion in Illinois, Florida and Montana. She serves on the Insightful Chicago board as well as the University of Florida’s Department of Interior Design’s Advocacy board, where she lends insight on topics like design thinking, industry trends, mentorship and equity, diversity and inclusion.

SWARUPA SAMANT Since joining DIGroup Architecture in 2014 and rising through its ranks to become a principal, Swarupa Samant has managed more than $200 million in construction projects and has led some of the firm’s most complex urban design-build school projects in the Northeast. Strongly committed to efficient, functional design, she is the driving force behind numerous LEED Gold and Silver designations, specifically within the firm’s education studio. Trained at the Academy of Architecture in Mumbai, India, Samant began her 25-year career as an instructor at the Sophia Polytechnic College School of Interior Design and went on to build an impressive portfolio of projects in the US. She has risen through the ranks at DIGroup Architecture from project architect and associate to associate principal and her current position as principal. Samant is committed to advancing viable, sensible design as well as promoting her profession as a career for women and people of color. A licensed architect in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, Samant is a member of the Professional Women in Construction-NJ Chapter. Her licenses and certifications include the National Council of Architectural Registration Board, the American Institute of Architects and the United States Green Building Council’s LEED AP designation.

MEGHAN SCOTT With a background in the fashion industry, specializing in Brazilian swimwear and lingerie, Meghan Scott has a different stylistic eye. She doesn’t just consider the space and finishes of a design, she considers the way people experience the space through perception and feeling. Scott is a multidisciplinary designer and associate at Washington D.C.-based architecture and design firm //3877. As one of two lead designers at the firm, she is responsible for overseeing all aspects of interior design and architecture, with a heavy hand in restaurant design and behind-the-scenes efforts in retail, residential and hospitality projects. Her designs have set the tone for the Washington D.C. dining scene in recent years. She is responsible for the design of some of the most successful restaurants in the city, including GATSBY, Mi Vida and Mah-Ze-Dahr. She is heavily involved in the Network of Executive Women in Hospitality, participating in local chapters and national events. In a testament to her work, David Tracz, a partner at //3877, tapped Scott to redesign his own home.

SARAH SHORES As VP of administration at Outside the Lines Inc., a design-build construction company that specializes in water features, rockwork and themed environments, Sarah Shores is highly regarded among her co-workers, peers and clients. She is repeatedly endorsed for her broad range of skills, from contract management, process scheduling and construction management to pre-construction, contract negotiation and cost control. Shores has a rich background of oversight and managerial experience that began at a young age. She was a recruiting supervisor for Prestige Staffing Services for nine years before moving on in 2004 to become personnel manager for the Eastridge Group for three years and then office manager for SEMA Construction Inc. for almost seven years. She joined OTL in 2014 as an office manager before being promoted to her current role in 2022. She is responsible for all office, HR, accounting, payroll, administrative and project coordination for multiple projects in multiple states. Her efforts have led to 35% growth in business and a series of valuable new hires.

GINA M. VARY Gina Vary is a respected architect who has made her mark throughout Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. As an architect and the director of client engagement at Alloy5, Vary works to foster client-centric relationships for all projects, including delivering complete drawing products on time and in a cohesive and collaborative way, eliminating bidder and contractor addendums and creating an overall smoother process. She leads a design team in developing designs and construction documents for communications to clients, consultants, townships, planning and historic agencies and contractors. Her recent work includes completing an emergency room design, a specialized sound mitigation for the school of music at Bloomsburg University and an exhibit at Lehigh Valley Zoo. She also managed several multifamily housing studies and designed a medical office building and other specialized healthcare patient suites for two major healthcare networks. Vary is a leader within CREW of the Lehigh Valley and recently organized one of its largest fundraisers for a local scholarship chapter fund.

CHRISTINA VILLA Since she was a child, Christina Villa has always loved drawing, making art and building things. After graduating from the University of Miami’s School of Architecture, Villa decided she wanted to be part of defining the future of Miami. She joined design and engineering firm Stantec as a design coordinator and has since served as a project manager, associate and senior associate. In 2022, she was promoted to her current role of principal. In her 17 years at the firm, she has succeeded in different aspects of the architecture industry including design, zoning and construction, and has worked across multiple building sectors such as residential, hospitality, mixed-use and healthcare. Villa and her team of architects and engineers recently completed Adela at MiMo Bay residential building in Miami’s MiMo District; La Clara luxury condominium project in West Palm Beach; and the EVO 334 mixed-use residential development in St. Petersburg. One of the projects she’s most proud of is the adaptive reuse of the former Miami Heart Institute Hospital in Miami Beach into a luxury multifamily development called The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Miami Beach.

MARIANNE WEISS Marianne Weiss is well-known and respected not only within Unispace, where she is a principal in design, but also within the entire Boston market. She leads and develops a high-performing local design team, develops and manages key client relationships, creates and executes the studio’s design strategy, leads key bid and pitch presentations for new business, drives collaboration across teams and maintains a high-level overview of all studio design projects. Weiss joined Unispace in September 2020 during the thick of the pandemic. Throughout lockdown, she helped develop new ways of working using collaboration tools such as Miro concept boards that enable Unispace employees to easily collaborate with clients and team members, create presentations and workshop project ideas from afar. In 2022, Weiss led the charge in the transformation of international law firm Orrick’s Los Angeles office through Unispace’s Art for Impact program. During the past year, she has also been working with an East Coast life sciences company to develop its post-COVID-19 workplace of the future, which pushes the boundaries of what a workplace can be.

BROKER / INTERMEDIARY – DEBT & EQUITY FINANCE ABBE BOROK Abbe Borok is managing director and head of US debt for BentallGreenOak, where she is responsible for managing all core, core plus and high-yield debt strategies as well as management and business development activities. When Borok assumed this position in May 2021, she was overseeing the management of about $10 billion of mostly low-yield loans throughout North America on behalf of Sun Life, the parent company of BGO, with a mandate to develop a vertically-integrated US debt platform. Since then, she has expanded the platform into higher-risk strategies and successfully launched BGO’s first value-add fund in the US, which she counts among her biggest recent accomplishments. Borok has built out a talent roster to support a vertically-integrated commercial real estate debt platform spanning underwriting, originations, capital markets, product development and asset management to leverage BGO’s existing $30 billion-plus US real estate equity platform to delve deeper into the debt markets and source consistent credit deals in its target geographies.

KELLI CARHART Kelli Carhart has an expert understanding of the multifamily sector and deep relationships with capital sources. She was recently appointed CBRE’s executive managing director and head of its multifamily capital markets group for the US, where she is responsible for overseeing the firm’s multifamily growth strategy nationwide and continued expansion of its multifamily business across the US. During her first year in this role, Carhart oversaw the firm’s second-best year on record for its multifamily debt platform with a record $35 billion. She is a frequent panelist for national conferences including MBA, NMHC and Multifamily Executive. She also has formally been invited to join a ULI Multifamily Council in 2023, which will be her first as a ULI council member. In addition, she will represent CBRE on the NMHC executive committee. Carhart has been active in several of CBRE’s focused efforts including its women’s network and the working parents collective.

MANDI HACKETT Mandi Hackett fell in love with commercial real estate while visiting her father, a loan originator, at work as a child. She joined him at Bonneville Real Estate Capital in 2004 while finishing her undergraduate degree and found her niche at the company as a financial analyst. Hackett helped establish Bonneville’s first FHA program in 2009 and scaled the business, underwriting hundreds of millions of dollars in applications while also closing more than $250 million in FHA apartment loans. An industry trailblazer with many years of experience under her belt, Hackett was the first and one of the only MAP-certified underwriters in Utah. Based in Salt Lake City, Hackett is managing director and chief FHA/MAP underwriter for Hudson Realty Capital, which she joined in 2021. She is responsible for evaluating loan applications for FHA-approved mortgages, including architectural review, cost review, management analysis and mortgage credit analysis. She has played a central role in establishing the firm’s FHA program and oversees all aspects of underwriting for FHA loans.

ALINA MARDESICH George Smith Partners senior director Alina Mardesich has worn many hats during her 33-year career, which gives her an edge as an advisor. She is responsible for raising capital, debt and equity, including co-GP, mezzanine, preferred equity and JV equity, among other creative financial products and services. These include PACE financing and ground lease bifurcations. Mardesich raised $100 million in capital in 2022 including construction debt, preferred equity, refinance debt and acquisition financing for residential and commercial properties in California and Texas. A native of Los Angeles, Mardesich is a first-generation American and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California. She has been recognized for her achievements in local publications. On top of being an active capital advisor, Mardesich has been a mentor and advocate for young women in the company, is active in the company’s culture committee and continually recruits more women into the workplace. She has undertaken a variety of personal growth activities, including backpacking throughout the US and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.

JILLIAN MARIUTTI-NIEDER Senior director Jillian Mariutti-Nieder joined JLL as part of the HFF merger and has 16 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry. Mariutti-Nieder arranges and structures real estate capital on an exclusive basis for owners, investors and developers, in addition to originating and closing loan sales. In the past 12 months, Mariutti-Nieder has executed more than $1 billion in transactions across the real estate spectrum for owners and developers throughout the US. She has positioned herself as an expert in pioneering green financing solutions, including C-PACE, and works with property owners to incorporate them into their capital stacks. Nationally, she has worked with numerous hotel developers seeking alternative capital sources for hospitality projects facing liquidity issues. For hotel developers who have recently completed ground-up or adaptive re-use construction or major renovations, Mariutti-Nieder has been able to arrange retroactive C-PACE financing. She has been called on to speak at numerous industry events, debating the impact of this financing tool on the greening of commercial real estate and exploring its benefits and drawbacks to borrowers, lenders and investors.

MELISSA ROSE Before transitioning to capital advisory in 2017, JLL managing director of capital markets Melissa Rose had an accomplished career on the principal side of the industry, working for several high-net-worth family offices spearheading in-house capital raising and acquisition endeavors. She joined JLL in 2020 and she specializes in securing debt and joint-venture equity financing with particular expertise in industrial assets. Rose has closed more than $5 billion in capital placements through first mortgages, mezzanine loans, bridge loans, acquisitions and joint-venture equity for a variety of asset types throughout the US. She has become one of JLL’s leading national advisors in the cold storage space, earning the nickname “the Ice Queen.” At the end of last year, Rose had executed more than $1 billion of industrial and cold storage transactions alongside strong performance across other major property types. She is known as a creative dealmaker with the tenacity to execute complicated development and structured finance transactions.

NICOLE SAYERS With a master’s degree in sports psychology, it may seem unexpected that Nicole Sayers landed in the commercial real estate industry. She began her professional journey in SBA brokerage, transitioned to commercial real estate lending for banks, and eventually returned to specialize in investment commercial real estate brokerage. Her love for numbers and her attention to detail make her an excellent fit for her role as an SVP at Colliers and the first female producer on the firm’s capital markets debt & equity team. Throughout her 18 years in the commercial real estate industry, Sayers has helped investors and small businesses secure both debt and equity for the acquisition, development and refinancing of commercial real estate. Her extensive industry relationships enable her to source and craft optimal debt and equity capital for both private and institutional clients, and her team handles a full spectrum of transaction types including financing for new construction, acquisition, recapitalization and consultation. Throughout her career, Sayers has demonstrated a remarkable ability to overcome obstacles and find creative solutions that enhance her clients’ success.

BROKER – INVESTMENT SALES J ACKLENE CHESLER Colliers vice chair Jacklene “Jackie” Chesler began her career during the Great Recession of 2008. She established a successful niche working with loan sales and REO servicers while developing expertise in handling special service transactions. She has focused solely on investment sales across most asset classes in the middle-market space and handles transactions that typically range from $5 million to $60 million, primarily in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. She has led her team’s work on landmark servicing projects, including a 70-plus property portfolio that required her advisory to lenders and borrowers for the disposition of properties. When uncertainties, including the Great Resignation, inflation and rising gas prices, prove that almost any borrower can be affected by widespread events, Chesler’s team helps local communities rebuild by protecting their businesses, properties and lenders. Working with her Colliers colleagues, she provides full-service advisory, receivership, property management, valuation and transaction servicing. This impactful work keeps clients and communities moving forward.

CANDICE CHEVAILLIER During the past two decades, Candice Chevaillier has focused on collecting and disseminating market data in a biannual publication called the Investment Review, which grew to a distribution of nearly 7,000 during the pandemic. As a principal in Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services’ Northwest multifamily team, Chevaillier offers market insights, mentors and guides nearly 50 brokers, and directly oversees a team focused on brokerage of apartment buildings in Seattle. To date, she has sold 133 buildings across 1,266 units for a total of more than $271 million. In the past year, she and her team sold 12 buildings, including a 56-unit portfolio composed of four buildings for $16.8 million and a quarter-block mixed-use complex in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle for $17.8 million. Chevaillier has been on the board of directors of the Rental Housing Association as well as the Commercial Brokers Association. She is also an active member of the CCIM local chapter, CREW network, the Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association.

CINDY COOKE With 42 years in commercial real estate, including 24 years with Colliers, vice chair Cindy Cooke leads a team responsible for nationwide coverage of multifamily investments. Private and institutional multifamily investors depend on Cooke to resolve complex issues involving large capital, where she assists in selling a property or a portfolio by consulting on refinancing or bringing in new equity partners. She is involved in every aspect of the transaction from the asset evaluation to closing, interviewing the buyers and assessing their qualifications as well as negotiations. Cooke also oversees due diligence, financing and closing. She has led her team to complete more than $16 billion in sales, and in 2022, she led her team to more than 20 multifamily deals, including the 340-unit Sol y Luna located in Tucson, AZ. During volatile market conditions, Cooke’s team managed the disposition of this complex property that was distressed due to unstable operations and deferred maintenance. They were able to source a 1031 buyer and sold the property for $203 million, at $589 per square-foot — a record for that market.

LIZ GAGLIARDI Throughout her career and especially during uncertain economic times, Newmark Group Inc. senior managing director Liz Gagliardi has remained a fixture for her clients. Her background in real estate includes commercial property tax appeal work, appraisals and land development, all of which provide her with a holistic view of the market and real estate investment cycle. In her role, Gagliardi co-leads the Chicago-based multifamily investment sales team. With more than 17 years of experience representing clients in dispositions, joint-venture structuring, portfolio sales, valuation and underwriting in the multifamily industry, Gagliardi has been involved in transactions valued at more than $3 billion. While her team’s primary focus is representing sellers of existing assets, they also have successfully raised equity capital for developers and owners. Gagliardi’s team has transacted some of the largest and most complex deals in the market, as well as facilitating loan assumptions and joint-venture partnership arrangements.

ANDREA W. HOWARD Northmarq managing director Andrea Howard co-leads the firm’s Carolinas investment team, which specializes in multi-housing properties and investment advisory. The team closed 34 transactions in 2022, totaling more than $2.2 billion in sales. She is lovingly referred to around the office as the “energizer bunny” because her passion and drive to exceed company goals never waver. Howard has 25 years of experience in multifamily transactions in the Southeast. She joined Northmarq in 2021 to build the company’s investment sales platform across the country. In addition to her robust book of business, Howard oversees the Carolinas office procedures and people management and serves on the Institutional Advisory Group, which is a companywide committee committed to expanding Northmarq’s institutional client base. Howard’s most significant transactions in 2022 included Element Uptown in Charlotte and 35 Folly in Charleston. She is also an active member of industry organizations such as ULI, NMHC and CREW.

ADRIENNE HUNTER Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services SVP Adrienne Hunter began her career in tenant representation but soon realized her true passion was in understanding how corporations make decisions. This led to her work in strategic consulting in the U.K., where she assisted large corporations in portfolio planning and workplace strategy. Her unique background has given her an in-depth understanding of deal structures that allows her to provide sound advice to both institutional and private clients. As a private client portfolio advisor, Hunter is responsible for providing advisory services across various asset classes, including marketing, underwriting, selling and acquiring existing assets, as well as developing new projects across product types within the Puget Sound region. Hunter has been an active member of NAIOP and served on the breakfast committee until 2021 when the activities were put on pause due to COVID-19. Her involvement in this committee was instrumental in organizing successful events that brought together members of the real estate community.

DARLA LONGO CBRE vice chairman and managing director Darla Longo has been a top-producing real estate professional for more than 40 years, specializing in investment sales, sale lease-backs, leasing, user and land sales, and recapitalizations of institutional investment properties. Throughout her career, Longo has been involved in more than $44 billion in real estate transactions, including $35.1 billion of investment sales across the US, totaling more than one billion square feet. Longo is the first woman in CBRE history to be elected to its board of directors, and she has been a top 3% producer for the company for 39 out of 40 years. She is the managing director of CBRE’s West Coast Institutional Group and one of the founding members of CBRE National Partners, a group of top investment professionals. During the past two years, the National Partners team has expanded with new partners in Portland, Miami, Denver and Minneapolis, and in 2022, the team completed more than $22.3 billion in transactions.

LAURIE LUSTIG-BOWER CBRE EVP Laurie Lustig-Bower began her career 35 years ago with the firm and she is the founder and leader of team Lustig-Bower, a group of nine professionals specializing in the sale of apartment buildings, condominium conversions/reversions and land for the development of multi-housing properties. During the past 19 years, she and her team have handled more than $12 billion in real estate transactions, and she has been rated one of the top brokers in the US for the past 28 years. As one of the first brokers to focus on marketing Los Angeles properties to the international market, she is known for selling the eight-acre Robinsons May development site at 9900 Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills for $500 million in 2007 to Candy & Candy, a London-based buyer, and then again in 2014 to Wanda Group, a multinational conglomerate based in Beijing. She serves as a guest speaker at universities including USC and UCLA, where she provides insights into the commercial real estate industry.

AMY OGDEN Kentucky native Amy Ogden uses her roots in southern hospitality to enhance her clients’ experiences, especially during dynamically shifting marketplaces and client requirements. As a partner at LOGIC Commercial Real Estate with a specialization in the Industrial + Logistics division, Ogden is responsible for business strategy, revenue generation, cost elimination and representation of buyers, sellers, lessors and lessees. She helps coordinate governance throughout the sales process, including qualification, discovery, proposal, pricing presentation and negotiation. She has represented several prominent e-commerce brands. Ogden speaks on numerous panels and engagements, including at the Appraiser’s Institute and the Western Real Estate Business conferences. A multiple PowerBroker Award recipient, Ogden pioneered new territories for industrial like Apex and Eldorado Valley and has sold or leased 1.3 million square feet of industrial space. She is a part of the SIOR National network and is a relentless supporter and advocate of all women in the industry.

ERIN PATTON Erin Patton has been with Marcus & Millichap for 19 years and has become one of the top retail investment sales agents in Columbus and the state of Ohio. She serves as a senior managing director of investments and Institutional Property Advisors (IPA), a division of Marcus & Millichap, as well as executive director, focusing exclusively on retail investment sales, including both single-tenant and multi-tenant properties. She is a founding member of the Patton | Wiles | Fuller team, which has been consistently ranked as the top shopping center sales team in the country for the firm and leads the Midwest across all brokerages in terms of the number of retail properties sold last year. Last year, Patton closed 109 deals totaling more than $819 million in sales, making her the top institutional broker in retail along with her partners Scott Wiles and Craig Fuller. Overseeing a team of 14 people with six full-time staff members and eight junior brokers, Patton personally mentors four of these professionals.

KIMBERLY R. STEPP Kimberly Stepp is a principal and co-founder of Stepp Commercial Group, a multifamily brokerage firm in Los Angeles with more than $3 billion in sales. She is one of only a few women who have ownership of a commercial real estate brokerage firm in California, and she credits great mentors for helping launch her career. Her original approach to marketing, unrivaled market intelligence, and the loyalty of her staff and clients fuel Stepp Commercial’s continued growth and make her a standout from her counterparts. Stepp has one of the most extensive computer databases of investor and property information in the industry. She leads a team of brokers at Stepp Commercial Group that specializes in the sale and exchange of multi-residential commercial real estate in Santa Monica, West Hollywood and prime Westside markets. Her decades of experience as an industry leader and her reputation for hard work, accountability and commitment to excellence are the values she maintains daily.

BROKER – LANDLORD / AGENCY REPRESENTATION CRYSTAL ALLEN After joining Transwestern in 2012, Crystal Allen quickly rose to leadership on the firm’s retail team and has continued to excel thanks to her ability to anticipate market trends and adapt her strategies to stay ahead of the curve in mixed-use development projects. Allen is a managing director at Transwestern, where she leads its retail services team specializing in project leasing. She has played a significant role in many high-profile projects and has created expansion strategies for retailers and restaurants across the US. Allen is consistently a top producer within the firm. Last year, she executed 25 deals totaling 85,680 square feet, and her total executed deal volume was more than $35 million. This includes overseeing the leasing activity for the Shops at Arrive Upper Kirby, which is now 100% leased with the addition of a 12,000-square-foot, Dallas-based restaurant concept; providing tenant representation for Pediatrix’s five newest locations totaling 25,000 square feet; and representing multiple concepts going into the recently developed Autry Park.

BARBARA ARMENDARIZ SharpLine president and founder Barbara Armendariz is one of very few minority women in commercial real estate to start her own brokerage firm, particularly in the competitive Los Angeles market. She founded the firm at age 35 despite many people trying to dissuade her, and she has steadily built the firm through persistence. She also runs offices in San Francisco and Las Vegas. Her more than 17-year career in commercial real estate includes roles at CBRE and Colliers International. In addition to leading a team of brokers and managing the company’s day-to-day activities, Armendariz is a retail property specialist. She manages all aspects of leasing and sales transactions for investor and landlord clients and works extensively with corporate occupiers providing research-driven, comprehensive strategies for execution in site selection, disposition, lease renewal and sale-leaseback scenarios. She is a proud mentor of her college-aged daughter, who is learning the business and recently earned her brokerage license.

NATALIE BATTISTI Jamestown VP of leasing Natalie Battisti oversees leasing strategy and implementation across the Southeast. Her notable properties include Ponce City Market, Westside Provisions and Buckhead Village, all located in Atlanta. Battisti also oversees development projects in various stages at Raleigh Iron Works and Charleston Navy Yards. She has generated more than $1.6 million in leasing fees at Jamestown with more than 75 executed leases in 2022 across six assets. She takes time to mentor junior agents on her team and is an active member of several local charities. She helped plan and fundraise for seven charitable events in 2022, most notably for Solidarity Santa Workshop, which provided gifts to more than 600 families in Sandy Springs. In addition to raising awareness for the project, Battisti provided vacant space to Solidarity on behalf of Jamestown.

TERE BLANCA Tere Blanca founded Blanca Commercial Real Estate in 2009 with the goal of building a brokerage firm that gives clients highly personalized service. With 35 years of industry experience, Blanca has led many significant lease transactions and new development projects, from land acquisition to master planning, design, construction, marketing, lease-up and sale of office and mixed-use assets. As chairman and CEO of the firm, Blanca leads a team of more than 35 professionals while remaining committed to maintaining a broker mentality by working to negotiate every real estate transaction her company handles. She has led the firm to complete more than 1.4 million square feet of office lease transactions and closed more than 750,000 square feet of lease transactions as a broker. Under her leadership, Blanca achieved 23% market share of agency leasing assignments for Miami Dade class A assets and captured 35% of total lease transactions signed in the county. She is the chair of South Florida ULI.

CARRIE BOBB Starting in the commercial real estate industry 20 years ago, Carrie Bobb has established herself as an experienced retail leasing executive with a proven track record of success. She spent the majority of her career focused on the Western US from her base of operations in San Diego, completing transactions totaling more than $2 billion. She paused her career to study how retailers drive revenue through social media and applied that knowledge to generate a formula for using social media as an income-generating platform for landlords. She founded Carrie Bobb & Co. four years ago and recently relocated to Nashville to employ the creative tactics she made successful in California in a new market. Bobb also co-founded digital media company hellojenny, which provides strategies for brick-and-mortar retail properties. In late 2022, Bobb joined commercial real estate services and investment firm Foundry Commercial, serving as SVP of retail services. She is responsible for leasing, rebranding and social media marketing for the third-largest retail development in the country – Nashville Yards. She has completed brokerage transactions worth more than $2 billion in total consideration.

AMANDA CALOF During her 20-year career with CBRE, Amanda Calof has worked on more than 13 million square feet of lease transactions, and since 2020, she has leased nearly 1.8 million rentable square feet of office space. Calof is part of the team responsible for leasing award-winning, class A trophy office properties owned by institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, including the landmark Century Plaza Towers and 2000 Avenue of the Stars in Century City and Water Garden in Santa Monica. The team brought in tenants such as Creative Artist Agency and Kirkland & Ellis to Century Park, and it closed one of the largest office lease transactions in Los Angeles County last year. As a first VP at CBRE, Calof oversees nearly five million square feet in the JP Morgan portfolio across West Los Angeles. She has received numerous awards for her work, including CBRE’s Top 15 Performer and Top Producer awards. An active participant in CBRE’s mentor program, Emerge, Calof has worked with three mentees and she also volunteers in her community.

CAROLINE DOYLE Caroline Doyle thinks and acts like an owner when it concerns leasing transactions or acquisitions, and she provides recommendations to each of her clients as if each building was her own asset. As SVP for Bayside Realty Partners, Doyle is responsible for leasing 15 medical office buildings with 14 different landlord clients/owners, ranging from nonprofits and private investors to health systems, institutional capital and REITs. This includes market trends and overseeing the full deal transaction, procuring tenants through lease negotiations and execution. She set a company record for the most 10-year leases signed in a single MOB asset within a 12-month period. Doyle also leads the company’s branding creative in new leasing brochure development, marketing campaigns and a new movement-oriented website. Her deal volume for the past 12 months includes 33 medical office lease transactions completed in San Francisco, the East Bay and the North Bay totaling $29 million in lease value and two medical office building investment sales that sold for $228 million.

PJ FOSTER PJ Foster is the kind of broker landlords and property owners trust to provide honest advice about their real estate needs. Foster and her team leased a total of 3.5 million square feet in 2022. She started with Colliers 10 years ago as an associate and has risen to the role of SVP, where she sources tenants, leases up vacant buildings and handles land deals as well as vacant user sales and sale-leasebacks. Raised in a family of real estate professionals, with dinner table conversations often revolving around landlords and tenants, Foster initially started a career elsewhere but quickly moved into the transaction side of the industry. Earning an MBA in corporate finance from Babson College with a focus on real estate and operations allowed her to combine both specialties. On the advice of her mother, Foster used her nickname “PJ” in professional settings because it could be confused for a male name, potentially opening more doors. As women grow in numbers throughout the industry, she now shares her full name, Patricia Jean.

PATTI GILBERT With a knack for navigating highly complex real estate transactions, CBRE SVP Patti Gilbert has completed several high-profile transactions leveraging her diversity of experience and knowledge. Her responsibilities include leasing, tenant representation and investment sales for a 4.5 million-square-foot portfolio of class A office properties, including Century Plaza Towers and 2000 Avenue of the Stars in Century City and Water Garden, a creative office campus in Santa Monica. She led the completion of the largest office deal in Los Angeles County last year – a 209,951-square-foot lease with Amazon at Water Garden in Santa Monica as part of three new office lease transactions. Her team also facilitated the 302,911-square-foot lease renewal by entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency in Century Plaza Towers in Century City. Gilbert has earned recognition as a CBRE Top 15 Performer and Top Producer and was named a CoStar Power Broker in 2021 and 2022 among other accolades. Gilbert is a dedicated mentor on both a professional and personal level and devotes her time to working with various business, community and charitable organizations.

ELIZABETH HART As president of leasing for North America at Newmark, Elizabeth Hart oversees the company’s operating businesses in the US and Canada. She drives strategy for its leasing business leveraging cross-platform synergies across Newmak, and she also helps recruit and retain talent. With experience resolving complex real estate issues with landlords, Hart is versed in zoning and entitlement processes, and her experience representing technology companies from single entrepreneurs to Fortune 50 members allows her to anticipate real estate challenges companies face at each stage of their growth cycle. Hart is a member of Newmark’s executive committee and served on the firm’s technology leadership team. She has represented numerous large-block developments and helped reposition large-scale projects that have transformed skylines. In her previous role as vice chair, Hart completed transactions totaling nearly 35 million square feet and more than $44.2 billion in value on behalf of owners and tenants and was a top-five producer in Newmark’s San Francisco office. She joined Newmark in 2005 and has been recognized numerous times in local and trade media.

SUZANNE E. MACNOW Suzanne Macnow has spent 23 of her 26 years in commercial real estate at CBRE, where she serves as SVP and New Jersey market leader. Throughout her career, Macnow has completed more than 900 lease and sale transactions in New Jersey and more than 1,100 deals nationwide. In 2022, she negotiated 60 leases in New Jersey totaling 881,520 square feet with a transaction value of $130 million, including transactions with FM Red Owner, TMC Properties, BZK Properties, PRC Group and Denholtz Properties. Macnow has been instrumental during the years in creating a new landscape in downtown Red Bank by helping lease up a class A office building, selling K. Hovnanian’s headquarters to Ocean First Bank, selling the Visiting Nurse Association’s headquarters to Saxum for a multifamily redevelopment and working with Merrill Lynch to renew its leases. Macnow’s work has earned her numerous awards and accolades. In 2017, she landed a spot in the highly competitive top 20% of CBRE producers nationwide, and in 2015 was the top CBRE office producer in New Jersey.

JACKIE MARSHALL Colleagues describe CBRE SVP Jackie Marshall as one of the most talented leasing agents in Dallas and refer to her as ‘the motor’ of every leasing assignment she wins. Marshall works on CBRE’s office investor leasing team in Dallas-Fort Worth, where she focuses on creative office properties and repositioning existing office spaces. During the past few years, Marshall has focused on how to make her clients and their properties stand out while deal volume has been limited, and she successfully comes up with out-of-the-box solutions to market buildings and vacancies with digital and personalized campaigns. She is responsible for marketing and leasing more than five million square feet of office space in urban and suburban Dallas submarkets. Last year, Marshall participated in 90 transactions totaling 650,000 square feet. One of her notable deals during the past year was representing Crow Holdings on its Southstone Yards development, the nation’s largest mass timber office building in Frisco. She is part of CBRE’s 2023 Investor Leasing Advisory Board, a national committee of investor leasing leaders and emerging leaders.

JENNIFER MEADE Last year, Jennifer Meade decided to move away from a successful five-year foray in third-party agency brokerage back to her original sphere of expertise of working in-house for a development firm. Meade is senior director of leasing at DJM Capital, where she brings experience to leasing transactions for the firm’s three-million-square-foot portfolio of retail shopping centers. Since joining the firm, she has brought a fresh perspective to new leasing, leveraging industry relationships, incorporating marketing and technology for efficiency and working with an all-female leasing team to close deals. She advocated for an update of the company website and social media and has significantly increased the level of communication and collaboration among the leasing, development, property management and acquisitions departments at DJM. Under Meade’s guidance, leasing fee revenues tripled in the fourth quarter of 2022 as she course-corrected a number of stalled new deals and renewals. She is active as a member of ICSC, where she has earned CLS, CRX and CRRP designations.

JESSICA MIZRAHI Cushman & Wakefield managing director Jessica Mizrahi is a top-producing broker in the firm’s Tampa office, consistently averaging nearly 100 transactions per year along with landlord and tenant representation assignments. She joined the firm in 2014 and is a broker on the Central Florida industrial team that oversees more than 14.5 million square feet throughout the region. Last year, Mizrahi and her team completed 130 transactions covering three million square feet of industrial space leased and an estimated $376 million in transactional value. She earned CREW Tampa Bay’s excellence award for top industrial deal in 2022 for her representation of an undisclosed tenant who leased a 330,000-square-foot warehouse. Mizrahi along with her industrial team members also had a land transaction that was named best land deal of the year for 2022 by the NAIOP South Florida Chapter. She recently achieved her SIOR designation.

MELISSA MOLYNEAUX Melissa Molyneaux says she stumbled upon a career in the commercial real estate field, beginning as a marketing specialist and transitioning to a broker role where she has flourished. Since joining Colliers in 2005, Molyneaux has been involved in more than 1,100 transactions totaling nearly 7.7 million square feet of office space. She typically oversees more than 1.1 million square feet of office properties in the Reno/Sparks area. Molyneaux has been successful at keeping revenue and production numbers up in her smaller market and not only has she consistently ranked as a top office broker in the Reno office but she also has earned numerous awards for her production and community service. As EVP at Colliers, Molyneaux leverages her experience in landlord and tenant representation with a specific focus on leasing and sales. In 2022, she closed 123 deals, composed of 104 lease transactions totaling more than $75 million and 19 sale transactions totaling $47.5 million.

SARAH Z. OZANNE Sarah Ozanne is an SVP on Stream Realty Partners’ Dallas-Fort Worth industrial team, where she focuses on industrial leasing and tenant representation within the DFW Airport and northwest Dallas submarkets. She also works on the firm’s Fort Worth office team. Her responsibilities include negotiating leases, touring buildings, acquisitions and dispositions, and helping developers with ground-up development. Ozanne is entrusted with sophisticated tenant representative assignments and has actively led and expanded Stream’s agency leasing business. She is described as engaging with clients and proactive in new pursuits. Her 2022 production was 4.1 million square feet and $163 million in value. Ozanne has received numerous accolades, including 2022 CoStar Power Broker and 2022 DCEO Power Broker. She is active on The Real Estate Council and is a member of Industrial Women in Real Estate. Among all the deals she closed in 2022, Ozanne says adopting her third son was her best.

JILL ROSE Bishop Beale Duncan SVP Jill Rose creates custom real estate solutions for a national and regional network of clients using her extensive experience managing large commercial real estate portfolios. Rose leads the company’s land division with a specialty in residential and retail land. She has deep knowledge of zoning, future land use and special plan overlays in Central Florida. Her strong network of relationships throughout the industry has helped the firm capture growth opportunities and take on increasingly challenging projects. One such project was the historic Ivanhoe building, for which Rose devised the company’s strategy, created site branding, researched the historic nature of the building and ultimately found the most relevant pool of buyers. She also has been the driving force behind exclusive representation awards for the School Board of Osceola County and consulted and negotiated the acquisition of a K-8 school. Rose also brokered one of Central Florida’s first build-for-rent communities in Osceola County. She has been awarded various accolades including largest land sale and largest user sale several years in a row and has been a CoStar Power Broker every year since 2005.

KERI SCOTT Each transaction presents a unique set of circumstances and challenges that Keri Scott says she enjoys navigating to successful outcomes. For example, Scott faced a challenging task while working with Dent Wizard, which needed heavy power, a large yard, a unique layout and a specific drive time requirement. Despite the obstacles, Scott leveraged her network of industry contacts for potential properties and examined all land possibilities for a build-to-suit solution while also exploring retail and redevelopment options and viewing underperforming assets that could become viable spaces. Scott is a VP in Colliers’ Phoenix office, where she specializes in project leasing, building sales and tenant representation for industrial and flex properties. Her primary focus is on mid-bay industrial and flex office business parks, single- and multi-tenant industrial and ground-up developments. Representing a roster of national and local high-profile clients, Scott has more than one million square feet of properties under her representation. In 2022, she completed 87 deals with $43.4 million in real estate transactions.

LEDONNA SPONGBERG Placemaking specialist LeDonna Spongberg is a fashion, entertainment and restaurant tenant representative and developer-landlord broker and consultant. She is one of very few women across the country whose leasing expertise and relationships are in the experiential retail sector. Spongberg is sought out by both landlords/developers and entertainment, restaurant and fashion tenants for her expertise. She has worked on large-scale, mixed-use ventures in Arizona as well as national projects such as Branson Landing, The Streets at Southglenn in Colorado and Boca Park Town Center in Florida. Spongberg brings a woman’s perspective to the retail brokerage business, which has included advice such as encouraging increased parking lot lighting for enhanced safety. As the pandemic slowed retail leasing across the country, Spongberg anticipated the results of the massive change in consumer buying habits as an opportunity to further evolve her career and pursue her entrepreneurial aspirations. She left a national brokerage firm to partner with two other notable local retail brokers to open the Phoenix office of Texas-based Edge Realty Partners, where she serves as SVP. Aligning with her goal to elevate a network of women in business, Spongberg is a member of AZCREW and has taught courses for the ICSC Learning Series.

STACY VIERHEILIG A top producer with a wealth of market knowledge, Stacy Vierheilig has a reputation for delivering results, with more than $750 million in completed sale and lease transactions. As principal at Lee and Associates – LA North/Ventura, Vierheilig specializes in representing landlords, tenants, investors and business owners in the sale and leasing of office, medical, retail, land, industrial and investment properties in the San Fernando Valley, Tri-Cities and Hollywood. During her career, Vierheilig has been engaged by financial institutions and private individuals to serve as an expert court witness, providing testimony concerning real estate valuations in Los Angeles. She also has developed a sub-specialty assisting media and entertainment companies and is well versed in the unique needs of creative users including recording studios and feature film production companies that require short-term facilities. Recognizing her achievements, the company nominated Vierheilig to its president’s circle and board of directors. Outside of the office, Vierheilig works with inclusion matters, a charity that builds inclusive, sensory and literacy-rich playgrounds around the world.

GERI WONG Newmark senior managing director Geri Wong, is a leader in the Bay Area’s commercial real estate industry and is known for her exceptional market knowledge, client care, diligence and reliability. Working in Newmark’s San Jose office, Wong specializes in commercial leasing and sales transactions and is a consistent top producer company-wide. She completed the largest lease renewal transaction in downtown San Jose in 2022 and assisted in the sale of a building enabling the Mexican Heritage Plaza to expand its performing arts programs in the East San Jose community. Wong also helped assemble five parcels in San Jose for future supportive housing sites and is working on a project that will have a 220-unit senior housing site in downtown San Jose. Colleagues say Wong is innovative and hard-working, always looking for the best outcome for her clients and never shying away from complex client needs. Wong has withstood uncertain times by finding productive and positive ways to help clients in the ever-changing landscape that COVID-19 and its ripple effects created.

BROKER – TENANT REPRESENTATION

ERICA BALIN Since 2004, Lee & Associates – LA/North Ventura principal Erica Balin has worked with a variety of tenants and developed a sub-specialty helping startups manage their real estate requirements while preparing for future growth. In her role, she represents tenants, landlords, business owners and investors in the leasing and sale of industrial and commercial properties throughout the Los Angeles North region, with an emphasis on the San Fernando and Conejo valleys. In the past year, Balin was nominated to the Lee & Associates – LA North/Ventura 2022 President’s Circle of Excellence and Top Ten Producer list. She amassed more than $95.75 million in total sale and lease transactions with more than 625,000 square feet sold and leased in 2022. Balin sits on the board of directors for Lee & Associates – LA North/Ventura and is a member of the American Industrial Real Estate Association.

ROCKY BINSWANGER CBRE SVP Rocky Binswanger leverages her experience and real estate knowledge to benefit clients at all levels, from mid-market firms to Fortune 500 companies. She specializes in occupier and landlord representation, including office and medical requirements. In the past 13 months, Binswanger has completed 982,769 square feet in transactions with a total volume of more than $440 million. She is skilled in strategic planning, in-depth market analysis, real-time client needs’ assessments, competitive lease negotiations and portfolio management. Her work includes representation with Anderson Holdings in Century City, IPG, USC and Rivian. She mentors three young professionals on her team. Binswanger recently moved to Dallas and has continued to successfully operate her brokerage business and run a team based in Los Angeles for both her agency and occupier clients. The time difference between Central and Pacific time zones allows for a substitute teaching role in her children’s school district and more community involvement.

KRISTIN BLOUNT A highly respected leader in Boston real estate, Kristin Blount understands market dynamics and leverages her extensive knowledge of the city to guide companies of all sizes. During her career spanning more than three decades, Blount has completed more than $3 billion in transactions. In her role as an EVP at Colliers, Blount provides professional representation to a variety of clients, including companies, institutions, developers and property owners in commercial real estate leasing. She had a notable year in 2022. One of her biggest wins was securing a 95,000-square-foot space deal for McKinsey & Co. in Boston, which she collaborated on with a colleague after years of dedicated execution. Blount also has led the Colliers Boston team through several projects for Beth Israel Lahey Health, including a major transaction involving the consolidation of administration support space that spanned 170,000 square feet. In early 2023, she also lent her expertise to the Museum of Fine Arts for a project.

ELLIE FANTINI CULLINAN Ellie Fantini Cullinan started her industry career more than 25 years ago, first on the commercial lending side and then transitioning to brokerage where she specialized in tenant representation in Boston. She is known for her positive attitude and personal approach to business that has led to long-term client relationships. Rather than retreating inward during COVID-19, Cullinan used that time to reach out to each of her clients to assess their needs and challenges. One client needed help shutting down surplus offices, while another needed help going completely remote. While these assignments generated little to no remuneration, clients truly appreciated the help. Cullinan co-founded Freudenheim Partners and serves as the firm’s EVP and principal, helping drive the direction of the firm. She focuses on representing tenants in Boston, Cambridge and suburban markets. Recently, she has expanded her focus to include life sciences tenant representation and investment sales. Cullinan completed 19 transactions with total lease values exceeding $40 million in 2022.

PAIGE JAFFE JLL managing director Paige Jaffe has led the firm’s Philadelphia retail brokerage division since 2019, transacting nearly 360,000 square feet of deals for landlords and tenants. Jaffe leads a team of brokers who cover southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and southern New Jersey. Throughout her career spanning 17 years, Jaffe has focused on high-street retail markets. Her roster of clients includes prestigious entrepreneurial and institutional owners, leading retailers like Apple, the J.Crew family of brands and Warby Parker, and top food and beverage leaders like Starr Restaurants, Garces Restaurant Group, Marc Vetri and more. During the challenges of the pandemic, Jaffe leased more than 136,000 square feet of space, and in 2022 she secured 10 leases on Philadelphia’s six-block high-street shopping corridor, driving a renaissance of the city’s retail scene following uncertainty surrounding the pandemic. She is the former president of ICSC’s Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware markets.

CATHERINE MEUNIER In the San Francisco Bay Area, where foodie culture is a strong element of regional identity, Catherine Meunier has been a game changer in the food and beverage industry. As retail partner at Maven Commercial, Meunier works with tenants, including restaurant and food-related services needing space that fits their brand, as well as with landlords creating a unique vision for their projects. The past three pandemic-impacted years have required resilience and dedication to helping firms negotiate new lease terms, understand lease clauses and deal with local officials. Meunier is considered the go-to retail broker for up-and-coming chefs and restaurateurs as well as landlords and has executed more than 100 Bay Area restaurant transactions throughout her career, including multiple Michelin-rated restaurants. On the ownership side, she has worked with national developers and landlords on individual leases as well as major campaigns to help define a skyline or create a thriving neighborhood. A fifth-generation San Franciscan, Meunier is described as a candid, high-touch broker with extensive market knowledge.

NICOLE MILLER Nicole Miller has nearly 20 years of commercial real estate experience, starting in 2004 when she joined Savills, which was then Studley. With grit and determination, she earned four promotions during the past 10 years and has consistently been recognized as one of the firm’s top performers nationwide, having executed more than five million square feet of transactions. In 2021, she was named senior managing director and co-regional manager of the firm’s Washington D.C. and suburban D.C. regions. Miller is recognized as an expert in reducing real estate costs for corporate space users, and she recently saved a client more than $4.1 million in overhead costs. She guides a diverse client portfolio that includes law firms, technology companies, financial services firms, major corporations and associations. Miller co-developed Savills’ building inclusivity and diversity group in 2017 to support the advancement of women and minorities at the firm and in the commercial real estate industry. In 2019, she organized the first-ever Savills Women’s Retreat that brought together 60 of the most senior female professionals and rising stars.

JENNA MULLER During her 10-year career, Cushman & Wakefield senior director of office leasing and transaction advisory services Jenna Muller has represented clients in $1.1 billion in office leasing and sale transactions more than 4.1 million square feet. She has distinguished herself in the Nashville market as the city undergoes a major transformation with an influx of new companies and residents. Her assignments range from leasing new class A office towers in mixed-use developments to building sales and representing high-growth tech companies for new locations around the country. In 2022, she was the first woman in the history of the Nashville Cushman & Wakefield office to make its top producers list. She was also awarded Deal of the Year by NAIOP’s Nashville Chapter last spring for the Revance Therapeutics HQ lease and subsequent expansions. Her key assignments last year included the 60,000-square-foot Monogram Health headquarters lease, the 70,000-square-foot Delek headquarters lease and the 30,000-square-foot Surgery Partners headquarters lease.

KELLY NICHOLLS Within just three years of joining Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate, Kelly Nicholls proved herself through hard work and became a shareholder in the firm. She has more than 30 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry focused on Southern California and Silicon Valley, where she assists companies with strategic planning, facility relocation, real estate portfolio administration, lease negotiations and more. In 2021, she closed more than $37 million in total deal consideration and completed more than 450,000 square feet of lease and sale transactions and more than 45 acres of land sales between 2021 and 2022. Nicholls was the company’s top producer in March 2022, and continued in the top 10 producers for another four months out of the year. In July 2022, she was designated as an SIOR. While serving as principal at the firm, Nicholles takes time to support young brokers in the industry and share her knowledge with them. Outside of real estate, she co-founded Military in Transition Firefighter for a Day to help veterans explore firefighting education and careers beyond their service.

NICHOLE K. POPOVICS Nichole Popovics has a dynamic background in commercial real estate ranging from leasing commercial and retail shopping centers to leading large teams in their leasing efforts. Now, as EVP and managing director at The Shopping Center Group, Popovics manages brokerage offices and spearheads a new tenant advisory platform. She joined TSCG in 2021 during a time of both uncertainty and opportunity in the retail real estate sector to manage the group’s Tampa office and develop business for its tenant representatives across all 20 TSCG offices on the East Coast. Since then, she has been tasked with developing the new Tenant Advisory Services platform. Her role is to lead and direct this group in national business development, and she has even created an opportunity for an international alliance and partnership. She is a member of ICSC, an active member of Ladies in Commercial Real Estate and a member of Women in Real Estate. She is a regular guest speaker at Florida State University’s annual real estate program conference and enjoys serving her community on numerous nonprofits.

CAROL SCHILLNE As a former All-American swimmer at the University of Southern California, Carol Schillne loves to compete and strives for excellence. She has more than three decades of experience as a developer, broker and tenant that she leverages as an SVP at Orion Investment Real Estate. She leads a brokerage team known as Schillne Retail, which she leads with her son, senior partner Cole Schillne, who joined the team four years ago. She has managed transactions for all retail product types, including lifestyle centers, regional malls, community centers, free-standing buildings and mixed-use projects. Schillne Retail provides restaurant services, tenant representation, disposition services, landlord representation, investment sales and consulting services. In the past 12 months, Schillne and her team have closed more than 52 transactions. Colleagues and clients describe Schillne as a trusted retail advisor with technical prowess and strategic market knowledge as well as an honest, ethical and caring person who combines integrity and hard work. Schillne is an active member of the Arizona chapter of CREW Network.

KARLA SMITH SRS Real Estate Partners EVP and principal Karla Smith focuses on tenant representation services, acting as an advisor and managing site selection throughout the Southwest for a number of national and regional clients including Target, At Home, Macy’s and Michaels. She executed an extensive 15-year rollout strategy for Sprouts Farmers Market in North Texas, as well as strategic expansions for Cabela’s, Pet Supplies Plus, Lifetime Fitness, Planet Fitness, Blockbuster, Fuddruckers and Core Power Yoga. In 2022, Smith was recognized as a top producer at the firm and was the No. 1 tenant representation producer. Smith serves on the board of directors of SRS, helping determine the overall direction and priorities for the company. She was a founding member of Deals in Heels, an organization that started 17 years ago dedicated to collaborating and elevating women in real estate in North Texas. She also helped create the framework for and is the executive chair of SOAR, a community within SRS focused on educating and empowering women in commercial real estate.

ELLEN STERN Ellen Stern is an 18-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry and a recognized leader in the office leasing business, specializing in tenant representation. As an SVP with CBRE’s advisory & transactions occupier group, Stern provides strategic real estate advisory services to clients in all industry sectors, ranging from global Fortune 100 companies to local professional firms. Stern and her team have been part of some of Atlanta’s largest and most significant office transactions during the past decade, including notable headquarters relocations and the opening of new offices. Last year, she and her team completed 110 transactions involving 5.1 million square feet with a value more than $1.37 billion. Outside of work, she is passionate about her role with Goodwill of North Georgia. She joined the board of Goodwill in 2020 and currently serves as the board secretary and chair of the board development committee.

ELYSE C. WELCH Founding Carolina Retail Experts amid a global pandemic forced Elyse Welch and her partners to engage in a thoughtful and strategic approach to ensure the long-term viability of the company. As partner, Welch specializes in retail commercial real estate brokerage and leads the tenant services team focused on marquee and best-in-class retailers, working with the tenants to devise custom market strategies across the Carolinas to maximize market share, out-position the competition and maximize sales volumes. One of Welch’s main accounts is with Starbucks covering the state of South Carolina. In 2021, while the majority of her deals were scattered across South Carolina, she completed 23 transactions with publicly traded companies totaling just shy of $31 million in transaction value. She has a reputation in the retail sector as a savvy deal-maker and expert who operates with integrity and honesty. She invests in mentorship, especially of working moms, and has served on the board of CREW Charleston for six years.

ROBIN ZELLMER Colliers EVP Robin Zellmer joined the firm’s Minneapolis/St. Paul office 15 years ago, eager to build a platform for multi-market business at a time when no such platform for tenant advisory existed within the office. She joined several professional organizations and became active in the commercial real estate community, earning a seat for Colliers MN at the multi-market table. Today, Zellmer provides portfolio management, transaction management, lease administration and project management for American manufacturers and international multi-market services for numerous companies with global footprints. Her deal volume in 2022 was $1.13 million, and in recent years she has conducted business in nearly 80% of the world’s nations. In 2022, she won a CoreNet award for Midwest Project of the Year. Not only does she oversee every detail on transactions but she also strives to be a dependable information resource via calls and emails to update her clients about market trends. Mentorship is a large part of Zellmer’s leadership style, and those who she has mentored say she has been transformative for their careers.

SALLY ZESUT As a VP at Avison Young, Sally Zesut brings 25 years of experience to every deal. She specializes in representing corporate tenants in site selection and investment sales on behalf of both buyers and sellers. She also assists clients with their local, national and international leases, sales, financing and construction projects. In 2022, Zesut brokered one of the top lease deals in Inglewood, CA, earning her the CoStar Top Deal award. Zesut also represents a diverse set of occupiers who range from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, handling all stages of the process from initial analysis, portfolio strategy, workplace strategy, lease negotiations, construction and move-in. She is a board member of the National Association of Women Business Owners – LA, where she actively works to empower female-owned and -operated businesses across Los Angeles. In 2019, she also spoke at Mayor Eric Garcetti’s 2nd Annual Small Business Summit, where she addressed the need for more female representation in business.

CONSULTANT / ADVISOR / INDEPENDENT PROFESSIONAL SHELLEY BALANDA After spending nearly half of her industry career working for owner-operator firms, Shelley Balanda launched Footprynt Advisors to help commercial real estate organizations implement transformational initiatives that positively impact their operations. As founder and principal consultant, Balanda’s core responsibilities focus on backing an organization’s strategic initiatives and growth goals. She collaborates on a shared strategic vision from analysis to change management to enhance decision-making and drive value for stakeholders. With expertise in acquisitions, asset management, lease analysis, due diligence, valuations, capital raising and portfolio strategy, Balanda has completed more than $5 billion in property acquisitions and successfully raised and negotiated more than $1 billion in joint-venture funding for operating partners during her career. She has helped more than six commercial real estate operating platforms expand their investment position in their properties by launching their in-house acquisition and asset management capabilities since 2014. Her noteworthy acquisition transactions include San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square and Boston’s Newbury Street portfolio.

MONIQUE BURROLA Partner Engineering & Science Inc. COO Monique Burrola has guided the company she helped found through COVID-19 and the many disruptions that have plagued the commercial real estate market during the past three years. As a founding principal and shareholder of the firm, Burrola was key in establishing, implementing and fine-tuning the majority of the firm’s infrastructure and programs from the ground up. She serves on Partner’s board of directors and its executive team. In her role, she oversees national operations for the organization, which has grown from eight employees to more than 1,400. She also oversees finances and profitability as well as human resources, including hiring and company culture. Burrola completed an emerging business leadership certificate program at Stanford in 2021. Under her direction, Partner has made the Los Angeles Business Journal’s list of fastest-growing private companies for several years and has been recognized as a top environmental firm.

JENNIFER CAREY As an entrepreneur, Jennifer Carey found a way to combine her love for the natural world and the built environment when she created JLC Environmental Consultants. The firm focuses on environmental due diligence and risk management consulting as well as testing services for the real estate and construction industries in the Northeast. As CEO, Carey guides strategic growth and works with the operations team to build company systems that are effective and client relationships that endure. A significant win for Carey and her team was the award of environmental consulting work for the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Municipal Building in Brooklyn. JLC Environmental Consultants is working as part of the Stantec, Department of Citywide Administrative Services and STV team to renovate this 500,000-square-foot building, which is one of the cornerstones of downtown Brooklyn’s continued revitalization. The team also recently completed the inspection of two large buildings to conduct an environmental risk assessment of the properties. Carey is an active member of CREW Network, the New York Building Congress, Women Builders Council and Professional Women in Construction, among others.

DEBORAH J. CLOUTIER Deborah Cloutier believes in holding owners of the built environment accountable for their contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions and nudges them to do something about it. She brings 30 years of experience in designing, developing, implementing and managing environmental, social and governance programs to her role as chief sustainability officer at Legence, where she guides clients on how to decarbonize their real estate portfolios. Under her leadership, clients have saved more than $250 million in utility costs and received recognition for their leadership in sustainability. The roster of clients Cloutier works with collectively control more than a trillion dollars worth of real assets. Cloutier spent many years as an entrepreneur founding and leading consulting firms. In 2020, Blackstone acquired her consultancy RE Tech Advisors to serve as a fulfillment platform for its private equity and real estate portfolio emissions and cost reduction program. That platform has now been rebranded as Legence and includes 12 portfolio companies. Cloutier serves as a program administrator of the U.S. DOE Better Buildings Initiative, promoting energy efficiency, utility cost reduction and carbon emission reductions.

REGAN DONOGHUE As one of the first WELL Accredited Professionals, Regan Donoghue has long been a pioneer of wellness in the workplace. In a nod to her experience and leadership in this area, Donoghue was nominated to be part of the IWBI WELL AP task force, a group hand selected to help define the role buildings play in prevention, preparedness, resilience and recovery post-pandemic. As senior principal of strategy at Unispace, Donoghue specializes in guiding clients through scenario planning, designing change plans and developing predictions about the future of their workspaces. She has helped Fortune 500 companies continue to grow their strategic expertise and create people-centric work experiences across the country. Donoghue has served as the keynote speaker for several global industry events and frequently is interviewed for media articles and podcasts. Before moving into her role at Unispace last year, Donoghue worked for Waymo, where she was nominated in 2022 as the team Culture Champion.

CARLY GLOVA Carly Glova believed the industry and community would benefit from a recruiting firm serving the commercial real estate industry. Although she knew she would face challenges, including having no experience in recruiting or as a business owner, Glova dedicated her career to establishing an executive search and recruiting firm. In 2015, after a nearly 10-year career in commercial real estate finance, Glova launched Building Careers to be a resource for the hiring needs of the commercial real estate industry in Southern California. As the founder and president, Glova oversees everything from business development to client and candidate management, recruiting and general business operations. Last year, she helped more than 20 candidates find careers. Her passion for providing the resources to enable job seekers to land the career of their dreams and re-enter the workforce is also satisfied through her creation of resume and interview programs for nonprofit organizations like Dress for Success. In addition, Glova started a women’s entrepreneur group that meets monthly to discuss business obstacles, successes, tips and tricks.

ERIN HOPKINS Research shows that having a teacher who shares their gender helps students succeed in their subject. For Erin Hopkins, associate professor of property management at Virginia Tech, teaching is an opportunity to share her interest in property management with an audience just discovering their career possibilities. Hopkins teaches property management operations including human resources and relationship management, finance and accounting, maintenance and risk management, marketing and leasing. She recently added environmental and sustainability issues in housing to her lesson plans. Hopkins also focuses on mental health and has integrated contemplative practices into her property management operations course. Outside of teaching and research, Hopkins works with the community to analyze current and future housing needs and offers her research expertise to local trade organizations. She participates on IREM’s ESG Advisory Council and helped create Elaina’s Fund to support sustainability projects around the world. She also collaborated with the IREM Foundation and Jackson Control to launch a new award this year to recognize the year’s best CSP property with a $25,000 prize, based on popular vote.

ELLEN KLASSON RCLCO Real Estate Consulting managing director Ellen Klasson leads the firm’s executive search practice, partnering with real estate companies to identify their next leaders. Klasson began her career nearly 20 years ago at RCLCO and returned to the firm in 2022 to launch and lead a new business line focused on executive search for real estate companies. In addition to building the foundation and training a team, Klasson has attracted best-in-class clients to the firm and led successful leadership searches for family-owned businesses, REITs and subsidiaries of international public companies. She has spent her career advocating for gender and racial equity, a cause for which she has a broader platform now as Americas Chair of ULI’s Women’s Leadership Initiative. One of Klasson’s focuses has been to bring greater visibility to successful mid-career and tenured women in the industry by placing them in leadership roles at real estate companies and within ULI. Klasson is also one of 50 members nationally in ULI’s Urban Revitalization Council.

JOHANNA KROGSRUD When Johanna Krogsrud joined FTI Consulting Inc.’s real estate solutions practice a year ago as a senior director, she immediately began working to sharpen the company’s focus on customer experience and service quality. She brings 19 years of experience providing property accounting services for commercial and multifamily real estate to her role and was recently promoted to managing director. Her vision is to change the historical view of property accounting as a low-cost commoditized function by building a property accounting platform that operates at peak efficiency and accuracy where the requirements for client oversight are minimized. To that end, she has helped hire, onboard and train new accountants to meet the needs of new client mandates. She has achieved 100% team retention and numerous referrals from her clients, a testament to the level of service she provides. Krogsrud is a licensed CPA in Minnesota and a member of the Minnesota Society of CPAs. She also is an active member of FTI Consulting’s global Women’s Initiative, FTI WIN, which offers female professionals career training, professional development, mentorship, networking and community-outreach opportunities.

KELLY MANN Kelly Mann is passionate about ensuring everyone feels comfortable, accepted and able to bring their authentic selves to the office. She recognizes, along with organizations around the world, that DEI includes forms of diversity that go beyond race, gender and religion to include neurological differences like dyslexia, autism and ADHD. As director of Cushman & Wakefield’s strategic consulting group, Mann works with clients to ensure accommodations can be made for those who are neurodivergent, which includes strategies as simple as switching out fluorescent lights for soft, white LED lights to help those who suffer from migraines work without headaches. Mann brings more than 20 years of experience in commercial real estate to her job, including lease administration, client relationship management and the strategic alignment of real estate with the operational needs of corporate owners and occupiers. She is responsible for business development and management of portfolio optimization and workplace analysis projects from initiation through completion. Mann is vice chair for Hildebrand Family Self Help Center and enjoys bringing her corporate insights to the nonprofit sector.

RONDA PURYEAR The third female to hold the position, Ronda Puryear serves as chair of the National Apartment Association’s board of directors. She began her term in 2022 with a focus on furthering the professionalism of the industry, identifying and cultivating new talent, mentoring the next generation of professionals, building on DEI&B principles and improving technology. This term is not Puryear’s first leadership role with NAA. She previously served as the Region I VP, a member of the governance committee and chair of the student housing and conference committees. During her term, Puryear will represent NAA publicly, including delivering keynote addresses at the association’s events as well as traveling to give remarks to affiliated apartment associations around the country. She was a featured speaker at the Nashville Apartment Association 2022 women’s conference and was featured in a Virginia Tech news broadcast that shined a light on her accomplishments in rental housing and sent a message of encouragement to the university’s residential property management students.

KRISTIN SEXTON As CBRE’s senior managing director of Americas Consulting, Kristin Sexton develops strategies to help companies evaluate their portfolios, location strategies and return-to-office approaches. Her expertise in talent-driven locations and portfolio strategies helps clients not only identify and retain high-quality talent but also potentially save millions of dollars. Her guidance has been particularly valuable over the past year as clients face rapid changes in their occupancy and real estate footprint. Sexton’s teammates and colleagues describe her as a compassionate and inspiring leader who is steady-handed, calm and collaborative. In her role, she managed seven regional sales leads last year and oversaw budgeting and forecasting as well as pipeline and quarterly reporting. She developed strategies for more than 50 clients that led to more than 30 million square feet of warehouse and distribution space transactions, which is expected to generate more than 40,000 jobs across the nation. She also led the location strategy for two mega-site manufacturing facilities, creating a total of 13,000 jobs.

ASHALATA SHETTIGAR Described as highly motivated, intelligent and optimistic, FTI Consulting Inc. managing director Ashalata Shettigar leads tax engagements for large private equity fund and public REIT clients invested in real estate. Shettigar has been recognized for developing innovative strategies and improving processes within the firm. Most recently, she handled tax consulting and compliance for properties in a $5 billion Manhattan retail portfolio. She also specializes in international tax and has been engaged by various offshore funds from Asia to assist with their US tax consulting and compliance needs. With her prior international tax experience working in India, Shettigar takes a keen interest in Asian clients and their deals involving the US. She participated on a panel for a webinar series, “Emerging Trends of Investing in Singapore for US Investors,” hosted by FTI Consulting last year, which covered US tax implications with respect to fund structures for US investors investing in Singapore Variable Capital Company and Indian Alternative Investment Funds. She prides herself on coaching and mentoring about 20 people in her tax group at the firm.

ERIN TALKINGTON RCLCO Real Estate Consulting’s managing director and director of consulting Erin Talkington works with clients nationwide to guide market strategy and implementation of major real estate projects. Her responsibilities include complex mixed-use assignments with a focus on public-sector, sports-adjacent and retail positioning work. Her projects have included Point of the Mountain State Land Authority’s 600-acre redevelopment site and the Green Bay Packers Titletown development. Talkington has grown RCLCO’s sports and entertainment practice and expanded its work with non-developer landowners pursuing public-private partnerships. She has worked with more than 20 teams, cities, developers and landowners, many of which will begin to deliver during the next 3-5 years. She also is responsible for the development and implementation of strategic initiatives in employee recruitment and retention. Talkington contributes to national ULI initiatives including the Technology and Real Estate National Product Council and has held prior leadership roles in the ULI Washington District Council.

JOSEPHINE TUCKER Josephine Tucker is a strong proponent of going back to basics at the formation of a strategy or when one gets stuck on a problem. Before joining JLL last year, Tucker was a national economic and financial advisory leader for Deloitte’s Infrastructure and Capital Projects Practice, where she used this back-to-basics strategy to build the firm’s Infrastructure Incubator in the US and Business Case Center of Excellence in Australia. Now, as global head of sustainable infrastructure and head of clean energy and infrastructure advisory at JLL, Tucker oversees a 30-person team of clean energy and finance experts and directs transaction, procurement and financial advisory solutions that target clean energy and core infrastructure for individual assets and global portfolios. She also sits on JLL’s global sustainability board and oversees M&A activities related to clean energy. Her clients include the State of Georgia, Washington Metro and the Department of Energy and she works with federal, state and local government entities, utilities and commercial clients across the oil and gas, transportation and infrastructure sectors.

JANA TURNER Jana Turner was one of the first female presidents within a global real estate services firm when she was named president of asset services at CBRE in 1997. She remained in the role for a decade, during which time she was involved with three major acquisitions. In 2008, she became a principal at executive search firm RETS Associates, where she has placed top CRE talent at some of the most respected industry firms. Focusing on positions from senior to executive-level management, Turner directs the firm in serving more than 220 companies, including REITs, developers, owner-operators, investors, pension fund advisors and more. In addition to opening doors for countless women in the business by placing females in executive roles, she spearheaded RETS Associates’ published surveys of women in commercial real estate, measuring their job satisfaction and experiences and monitoring their progress in terms of compensation, growth opportunities, workplace culture and sexual harassment. With more than 40 years of commercial real estate experience, Turner is described as both a powerful and purpose-driven executive.

ANN VOLZ Ann Volz brings more than 30 years of real estate experience to her role as president of Volz Co., a real estate and operational advisory and program management firm which she founded in 2015. The firm serves mission-driven organizations, nonprofits, higher education institutions and the development industry to advance their strategic real estate, operational and business plan objectives. She has been involved in all aspects of development from early feasibility to property management, including planning and implementation services with more than 200 educational institutions and operational advisory services for more than 20 professional services firms and not-for-profit agencies. Working within the budget constraints of CREW San Diego when it needed to revise its strategic plan several years ago, Volz structured an innovative pricing model that was feasible for the organization and provided more than $15,000 of services pro bono because she believed in the mission of advancing women in commercial real estate. Previously, Volz held leadership positions at firms focused on student housing, program management and international architecture.

CORPORATE REAL ESTATE EXECUTIVE JULIE BAIRD Real estate attorney Julie Baird has worked in the real estate and financial services industry for more than two decades and currently is the president of First American Exchange Co., a qualified intermediary handling 1031 exchange transactions across the country. Baird is involved in all phases of the 1031 exchange business, including management and oversight of the five regional 1031 exchange divisions, financial management, oversight of marketing and product development, and the facilitation of strategic growth decisions. Under her leadership, FAEC has completed its first two acquisitions of qualified intermediaries and spearheaded an 18-month software development project to deliver an entirely new transaction platform for internal processing of 1031 exchanges and client self-management of their exchanges. Previously, Baird served as the firm’s Western regional manager overseeing 13 states and as national counsel. She is a past president of the Federation of Exchange Accommodators.

LAUREN BALL Lauren Ball was recently promoted to COO at Westwood Financial after serving as the firm’s first SVP and head of leasing. In her new role, Ball oversees a team of 35 professionals engaged in leasing, construction, legal, marketing and property management for the firm’s 8.9 million-square-foot retail portfolio. Based in Atlanta, Ball has a reputation for getting things done backed by a record of $865 million in transactions during her 18-year industry career. Since joining Westwood in 2021, Ball has led the leasing team to the highest percentage of leased space in the company’s history, topping 96.8% leased as of year-end 2022. She also increased small-shop occupancy from 88.2% in early 2021 to 92.8% by the second quarter of 2022. Other notable achievements include increasing occupancy at Main Street at Town Center in Kennesaw, GA, in less than 200 days after completing the center’s renovation, and revitalizing the Village at Peachtree Corners by leasing 26,000 square feet of vacant retail space in 100 days, bringing the center to 100% occupancy.

JODI BEARDEN Jodi Bearden is credited with building Greystar’s enterprise services team, which includes accounting, brand and customer experience, communications, people and culture, risk management and technology functions. This shift to shared services allowed Greystar to scale and operate a global platform. Bearden is an executive director and global enterprise services leader, where she develops resources and functional operations to sustain the organization’s global growth while enhancing team member experiences. Her role was critical during the outbreak of COVID-19, where she oversaw the organization’s global response. Bearden’s model enabled teams to make important global decisions while also having the ability to ensure local decisions were executed in line with Greystar’s corporate strategy. She is also responsible for addressing diversity, equality and inclusion efforts across the company and creating its DEI platform. Before her promotion to launch and lead the enterprise services group in 2019, Bearden led the firm’s investment accounting and global practice teams, both instrumental functions in the company’s international expansion efforts. Before joining Greystar in 2014, she was a managing director at Jamestown.

NICOLE BENNETT Nicole Bennett co-leads Cushman & Wakefield’s Americas logistics and industrial platform with colleague Jason Tolliver. Together they oversee a group of 850 industrial brokerage professionals, including a leadership team made up of 71% women. She also helps drive the overall strategy, direction and growth for the platform and specializes in supporting occupier clients through complex, fully integrated site selection projects for large manufacturing and distribution facilities. Bennett’s 15 years of experience in supply chain, business development and industrial real estate brings unique expertise to Cushman & Wakefield’s logistics and industrial services business. Before moving into her current role, Bennett built and led the firm’s client experience program, where she developed key performance indicators and client interviewing practices that allow the firm to measure its performance and ensure client expectations were met and exceeded. Prior to joining Cushman & Wakefield, Bennett led the occupier side of the industrial business at CBRE. She is passionate about paving the way for other women to follow in her footsteps and is currently spearheading Cushman & Wakefield’s Women in Industrial initiative.

LISA BEVACQUA Silverstein Properties EVP Lisa Bevacqua and her team have been key to ensuring the firm is in a good position during the turbulent times caused by COVID-19. Bevacqua managed her team’s efforts to analyze cash flow at each property across the firm’s portfolio and ran various scenarios to recommend the best course of action for each property and its investors. She also oversaw the rapid shift of adapting the tenant experience program in each of Silverstein’s properties from in-person to virtual. Thanks to these efforts, Silverstein Properties grew its portfolio to 16 million square feet, including assets outside of New York City. Bevacqua joined the firm in 2010 to help establish its asset management department. By 2013, she had been promoted to director, and today, she leads asset management and residential leasing. Bevacqua is a member of Chief, a private network focused on connecting and supporting women leaders, and is active in a number of real estate organizations, including CREW and ULI.

SHEILA BOTTING During her three-decade career, Sheila Botting has led a number of businesses, multi-disciplinary real estate teams and assignments with owners, investors and corporate occupiers. She is a principal and president of Avison Young’s Americas professional services group, where she leads a business and service delivery platform that includes design, project and construction management, consulting, valuation and tax advis