NEW YORK CITY-Throughout the commercial real estate industry there are a slew of organizations and groups all with the purpose of bringing like-minded people together. One of these, maybe a little newer than the others, is the ULI Women's Leadership Initiative, which came into being a little over two years ago. This week, Pauline Nee; WLI Chair - Communications Committee, Andrea Wong–Miller; WLI Associate Chair, Merrie Frankel; WLI Chair – Outreach Committee and Diana Reid; WLI Chair – Executive Committee gave a little more insight into this organization and how it aims to make good on its mission statement.

1. GlobeSt: The mission of WLI is to “Raise the visibility and number of women leaders in ULI and the real estate industry.” Describe some ways that the association has been able to achieve this, for those unfamiliar with its principles.

We launched the Women's Leadership Initiative at the ULI 2012 Spring Meeting in Charlotte as part of ULI's Larson Leadership Initiative. 25 long-time leaders within of ULI came together over several months and developed four objectives for the initiative:
* Promoting the advancement of women, throughout their careers, as leaders in the industry;
Increasing the number of women who serve in leadership positions in the real estate industry and in ULI;
* Increasing the visibility of women leaders in the real estate industry and in ULI; and
* Increasing the number of women who are active ULI Full members, and supporting development of young women members as leaders in ULI and their professions.