When I think about the industry, when I think about the issues of gender that people ask about, I don't see everything in terms of gender. I really see it in terms of individuals, and in my case, I had a great male mentor in Rick Trepp. You need to be open to what you can learn from good people in the industry, regardless of their gender.

So that's how I got started. I was at Trepp in the role of general counsel, which grew into general counsel and chief administrative officer. I was in that role for 15 years, and then there was an opportunity to put my hat in the ring to be considered for CEO. I got the nod in 2005.

SHARI LINNICK: I came to where I am in a very circuitous fashion. I have an undergraduate degree in classical music and did not consider getting into real estate until I was living in Chicago after going to school in Ann Arbor, and it had crossed my mind when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, since I did not want to use my undergraduate degree in a professional sense. I didn't really stay in that city long enough for that thought to be anything more than a thought.

When I moved to New York, in the process of looking for loft space, I met a gentleman who was a licensed agent. As it turns, he was a distant cousin by marriage. He encouraged me to consider getting into the business because we wound up spending a lot of time together looking at buildings and driving around Brooklyn and meeting all of these really crazy landlords and seeing properties that were in all conditions of either disrepair or had been converted into lofts. Having an art background, and living in this kind of environment, these types of properties really spoke to me, so he encouraged me to get a license. And I did, eventually.

I started working for a little firm on the Lower East Side. Immediately, since I had a car, was able to develop an enormous number of contacts in and around Brooklyn. This was a time when loft living was just starting to really take off in a formalized fashion there. It had been a very DIY sort of entity right up until probably the month before I started doing this.

Then owners of these very large factories started to get wind that some of the tenants were converting the space, sub-leasing it and making money. I basically helped a lot of those property owners convert their properties in such a way that would attract a certain type of tenant. These were all commercial properties, and they ended up being live/work lofts.

I was magically able to do so much business in the first year that I was licensed at all as an agent. I was also able to get my broker's license in the shortest amount of time allowable by the state, which is one year to the day. I started my own company on that day and had moved out to Bushwick, and in the next five or six years, moved hundreds of people further out along the L train because everybody wanted a $1,000 apartment in Williamsburg, and by then, it was impossible.

At some point I decided that I needed to get an advanced degree because I wanted to go into the finance side of real estate. So I went to NYU and I got my master's at the Schack Institute. While I was there, I took a class called Capital Markets and that's where I met one of my greatest mentors to date, Larry Longua. His course changed my entire existence. I knew I wanted to work in CMBS. I finished school and went to work for Fitch Ratings.

Then fast-forward several years, and then I started teaching at NYU, and I've been teaching that course for the last seven years, because of Larry Longua, who has really encouraged me. Then a few years ago, I was speaking at a panel discussion at NYU, and I met Tom Fink, of Trepp, who is pretty much the face of Trepp as we know it, and the thought briefly crossed my mind of working for a data provider, which I had never considered.

But that meeting was so fortuitous because it triggered the idea of doing it, and I wasn't quite ready to leave where I was. But at the moment that I was ready to leave where I was, I got a call from a recruiter for a job here.

AYGOREN: Did either of you encounter any difficulties in your career that you would say are based on your gender?

DICOLA: I honestly don't feel that way. The day I started working for Rick Trepp, he said to me, “Just remember, you're more valuable to me when you disagree with me.” Rick was right 23 years ago, and taught me and encouraged me to do that. Since I was given that kind of advice from a male founder of the company who then served as mentor and still does, I'm hard pressed to say that I think I was underestimated because I was female or I was discouraged because I was female.

Now, I also know that I'm fortunate. I know there are women who would say the opposite, and they'd be justified.

LINNICK: I never felt disadvantaged as a woman. I recognize that we're a minority in finance and in our industry, but I have never had the mindset that I am a woman, and other people are men. I just sort of think of myself as a person.

Our industry is a fairly young one, at least our niche of structured finance. What's very interesting about it is that when you look at the companies in the sector, a good number of them are run by women. That in itself is really rewarding.

AYGOREN: The whole thinking behind Lean In, and the whole conversation around the book, is that intrinsically women don't do the things that one would need to succeed. Do you think women get in their own way sometimes?

DICOLA: I'll give you an anecdote about that, and one of the many reasons I think the book is spot-on. I think there are unconscious things that women do that derail them. My mentor, many years ago, took me aside after a meeting. He complimented my contributions to the meeting, then he said something very interesting. He said, “When you're in a meeting, get to your point faster. Be more succinct. Don't start talking by qualifying what you're saying so much.” Although I hate generalizations, one of the ways that women communicate is to qualify or set some stage because they want their comment to be well received or they want to make sure no one takes offense. It's one little thing, but it's big.

LINNICK: I completely agree with you on the importance of how you communicate. I also think that presence is a major factor in terms of how people receive you, and whether they respect your ideas or consider you to be somebody of value at the table. Presence can be simply the way that you sit, the way that you look at people when you speak, how you dress.

It's important to figure out how to be comfortable in your own skin while presenting yourself as someone whose ideas are important. In order to do that, you have to somewhat present yourself in a way that makes people pay attention.

AYGOREN: What do you admire about each other?

DICOLA: Shari's been an outstanding part of Trepp. Whenever I meet one of her accounts, the accolades, the compliments, the incredible satisfaction of the client is always outstanding. I've also seen her interact internally with colleagues. I've seen her tremendous contributions at meetings. This is a woman who certainly speaks up and contributes.

Shari's trajectory in her career right now reminds me quite a bit of myself some years back. I don't view myself as having a very linear, straight line in this field. We have that in common. Also, a few years ago, I was asked by the then-president of the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council, Jack Cohen, if, as a member of the Board of Governors, any of us had anyone we'd recommend to join the Education Committee. I volunteered Shari and immediately I started getting accolades from everyone at CREFC who were so impressed with what she brought to the Education Committee. She's now chair of the committee.

That also reminded me of myself; in '93 or '94 in an issue of asset-backed alert, I read about a group of people who were starting to form a trade association to specialize in CMBS. I attended and have been involved in the organization since the very beginning. I served as membership committee chair, on different committees, executive committee, served as president of it myself a few years before Jack Cohen was president. When I see Shari's success in that organization, I see a younger version of myself, rising through that organization many years earlier.

LINNICK: Thank you. It's the same in reverse. I feel incredibly fortunate to work here because of you, specifically because of you. And I'm not blowing smoke at all. I really do. I've said that to a lot of people.

The fact that you are central to the industry, that this is a stellar company and has been so successful, that the environment here is so pleasant to work in, that you've managed to take opportunities as you've seen them come your way and be flexible enough to make the most out of them and, at times, have the wisdom to learn from your experiences—those are all things I have tried to do since I haven't had a very straight-forward trajectory.

So as you say that you see a lot of the younger version of you in me, you're life path speaks volumes to me as well in that way.

AYGOREN: How do you manage your work-life balance?

DICOLA: I've been married a very long time, and I'm the mother of two sons who are now 24 and 21. I learned a long time ago that “balance” is a bad word. Balance implies a lot of perfection. It never works out. I think of it more in terms of "harmony" and trying to invest a little time every weekend in mapping out the week ahead both for work and for life, and reminding myself every week, what are the most important things I've got to try to push forward on both fronts. You're not going to get everything done. It's not going to all be perfect.

LINNICK: This is one way in which we're very different. I have no children, and I live in a community that does not function on any sort of regular clock. For me, idle hands are the devil's plaything, so I try to stay as busy as possible. I feel almost obligated to spend my time doing things that would benefit either the community, my work community or myself in terms of self-improvement. I still do pro bono work in the neighborhood when I can. I teach at NYU in the evenings. I'm President of NYCREW and work at CREFC. Sometimes my head is spinning.

AYGOREN: Where do you see the commercial real estate industry headed?

DICOLA: I spoke recently at a NYCREW breakfast, and somebody asked the same question about where do you see the industry trending, and I spoke to exactly that point. The younger generation of people entering the industry includes a generation of men who, like women, want to get home for the school recital. They want to be there for breakfast with mom and dad at the kindergarten. They want to coach the soccer team, and they are very focused on having a lot of balance, their work-life balance, too.

So this is not just the purview of women, but I see a younger generation of men. I see it with men here at Trepp. That's a good thing in general, and I think it's a good trend that we will continue to see in this sector because I don't think it's different from other sectors. I think it is a generational thing.

LINNICK: My classes are a majority of young men, and a handful of young women, and what's interesting is that the women typically do very well and are very motivated. They don't seem to be trying to prove themselves as women, but they're definitely strivers. It's also a generation that has had the benefit of growing up in an environment where these types of issues were not quite as onerous as when we were young, but the flipside of that is that there's much more competition for them because there's a much more level playing field.

The Echo Boomer generation is huge, and they have to be on their game in order to survive and compete with each other. It's a very interesting age group to teach. But there really is no gender bias in that generation. You just have to really know your stuff and be very proactive in terms of what you want to do and where you want to go because it's a sink-or-swim environment.

FAST FACTS

Favorite type of food?
DICOLA: Italian.
LINNICK: Food. I like to eat.

Favorite thing to do in your downtime?
DICOLA: Sleep.
LINNICK: Listen to music.

Favorite vacation spot?
DICOLA: Bermuda.
LINNICK: France.

What are you reading now?
DICOLA: Bossypants by Tina Fey. It's an antidote to everything else I read for work.
LINNICK: I guess the Economist? That sounded so nerdy.

What's one thing about you that most people would be very surprised to find out?
DICOLA: My alter ego is to be a jazz ballet dancer. In high school and college, my other passion was dance.
LINNICK: I was a radio DJ in college for several years.