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Ethnic and Gender Balance Are Good for Business, Say Industry Leaders

LOS ANGELES-Industry leaders say ethnic and gender balance are good for business, and they're willing to go the extra mile to recruit and retain women and minorities.

By Patricia L. Kirk | Updated on February 26, 2001

LOS ANGELES-One of the last white-male bastions is slowly but surely disappearing, according to executives with two of SoCal’s largest commercial real estate firms, who say gender and ethnic balance make good business sense and are going the extra mile to recruit, retain and move these two groups up the corporate ladder. “Companies that aren’t doing this obviously are ignoring the morays of business,” says Cody Plott, president/CEO of Collier Seeley in Los Angeles, who contends, “it’s a question of dollars and cents.”

Noting the region’s multicultural make-up, he explains, “Our clients are across-the-board (ethnically), and we want them to feel comfortable working with our company.” Language and culture both are issues in working with multicultural clients, says Plott, emphasizing that a Japanese broker is needed for Japanese clients, a Korean for Korean clients and so forth. He notes that his firm’s ethnic balance currently is reflective of the population in general at about 70/30, but not of its clientele, which is about 60/40. “This certainly is not ideal. So we need to continue to push to reach our goal.”

Plott says the same holds true for women clients. So “if a qualified job candidate is female, that’s a plus,” he continues, admitting that the firm goes to great lengths to recruit and hire a woman with industry experience.

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