Debra Stracke Anderson
Twenty years into a career with firms such as Insignia/ESG and Compass Management and Leasing, Debra Stracke Anderson launched her own firm, Sloan Street Advisors, in 2000. It focuses exclusively on corporate tenants and buyers in the Washington, DC metro area as well as internationally. Three years later, Sloan Street was selected as the DC regional affiliate of International Tenant Representative Alliance Global, and Anderson has long since made her mark upon the organization. She was elected chairman of the board for ITRA Global for two terms, the first woman to hold the seat in the history of the organization. Under her leadership, ITRA Global expanded significantly abroad; it now has 10 European affiliates and one in Asia. She is serving a second year as chairman emeritus and in 2009 she received the Exemplary Service Award presented by ITRA Global to recognize outstanding leadership.

Sharon Dworkin Bell
As senior staff VP for multifamily at the National Association of Home Builders, Sharon Dworkin Bell has virtually become the face of the organization in the industry. She has primary responsibility for multifamily policy and issues advocacy as well as the continued expansion of educational, research, and business services to multifamily builders, developers, owners and managers. During her tenure, membership in the NAHB Multifamily Leadership Board has dramatically expanded to represent the top national firms involved in the ownership and development of market-rate and affordable rental housing as well as multifamily for-sale properties. Before joining NAHB, Bell was with the office of investor relations at Fannie Mae. A 20-year veteran of the housing industry, she also has served as CEO of Dworbell Inc. and as associate director of the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association.

Barbara Liberatore Black
Barbara Liberatore Black is founding principal of what is now Cresa South Florida and was one of three founding partners of Prevé Liberatore & Barton, which became Cresa Partners in 1993. It's now the largest firm of its kind in North America, with more than 50 offices across the US and Canada. Along with securing hundreds of leases totaling more than eight million square feet during a three-decade career, Black has distinguished herself for industry leadership and mentoring young commercial real estate professionals. Although Black got her start at a time when women in the industry were few and far between, today she sees commercial real estate as “wide open for women in every field and there's nothing stopping women from great opportunities. I don't believe there is a glass ceiling in this industry, as it is very entrepreneurial in nature. If you work hard, you will benefit.”

Tere Blanca
Tere Blanca left her job running Cushman & Wakefield's South Florida offices in 2009 to launch her own firm, Blanca Commercial Real Estate Inc. It was seen as a risky move in the midst of a recession but the idea, Blanca told the Miami Herald earlier this year, was to return to her brokerage roots. The gamble paid off quickly when the firm landed the leasing assignment for the newly built 1450 Brickell, now 95% leased. Blanca's longstanding reputation as a force to be reckoned with in South Florida commercial real estate undeniably helped matters. Before joining C&W, she spent 14 years with Codina Realty Services/ONCOR International, where she was consistently among the firm's top producers. Today, she receives many industry accolades and is considered one of the region's top dealmakers.

Ann Hambly
Recognizing a need for a borrower advocate in commercial real estate loan restructuring and assumptions, Ann Hambly created 1st Service Solutions in 2005. Loan servicing is a subject Hambly knows better than most, having not only served as head of servicing for Prudential, Bank of New York, Nomura and Bank of America, but also as a participant in devising the CMBS standards that are in place today. She's a sought-after author of articles and featured speaker for conferences aimed at CMBS borrowers, lenders and attorneys. Hambly is currently on the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's “think tank” for commercial real estate, and recently was asked to do a presentation to the Fed about some of the issues facing the CMBS sector and commercial real estate in general. In 2003, she served as the chair of the Mortgage Bankers Association's commercial board, the first woman to do so.

Deborah Harmon
Co-founder (in 2009 with Penny Pritzker) and chief executive officer of Chicago-based Artemis Real Estate Partners, Deborah Harmon has a long track record in the business. She previously spearheaded the acquisition of $27 billion in assets as president and chief investment officer of the J.E. Robert Cos. During her tenure there, she oversaw a joint venture with Goldman Sachs for more than $7 billion in non-performing loans and real estate and more than $4.5 billion in equity investments across eight private equity funds. For the eight years preceding JER, Harmon was a managing director at Bankers Trust Co. in New York City, working in both the corporate finance and real estate groups. She has long been active on the public-service side as well, serving at various times on the boards of the National Children's Research Center, Beauvoir the National Cathedral Elementary School and Sidwell Friends School, all in Washington, DC. Currently she's a commissioner on the President's Commission on White House Fellowships.

Sharon Harper
Sharon Harper is regarded as one of the foremost experts in medical office, commercial office, senior living, research and biotechnology real estate in Arizona and the Southwest. Her firm, Plaza Cos., which she co-founded in 1982 and leads as president and CEO, is regarded as a leading force in development, leasing and property management in several key market sectors in the region. In the healthcare arena, for instance, Plaza has made brokerage hires in recent months that have more than doubled the size of the company's leasing and brokerage portfolio. Approximately 30 new properties have been added to Plaza's leasing assignments since the beginning of 2013 and more are projected to follow. The caliber of organizations that have partnered with Plaza over the years—among them are Banner Health, John C. Lincoln Hospital, USAA Real Estate Co. and Arizona State University—attests to the stature of the company Harper has built.

Leslie Himmel
Considered the highest-ranking female landlord in New York's commercial real estate marketplace, Himmel co-founded Himmel + Meringoff in 1985 with Stephen Meringoff. The firm has since amassed a portfolio of more than two million square feet of class B office space. Himmel, who began her industry career sourcing state pension funds as commercial mortgage lenders, focuses on acquiring and financing properties that are suitable for repositioning, along with day-to-day operations and marketing and leasing initiatives at H + M. She founded the Real Estate Board of New York's Economic Development Committee in 1992, and continues to serve as co-chair. In 2011, she received REBNY's Bernard Mendik Lifetime Leadership Award. Her long-term goal is to double H + M's portfolio in the next few years, meanwhile continuing to mentor young women through speaking engagement opportunities from Harvard Business School, Wharton Real Estate classes and professional real estate groups.

Nora Hogan
A change in both industry (from medical devices to CRE) and climate (from Chicago to Dallas) was the catalyst for a career path that, for Nora Hogan, has meant completing more than 22 million square feet in transactions since 1984 and becoming a principal with Transwestern. Three downturns later, she is recognized as a leader in Dallas/Fort Worth and nationally, and although her specialty is transactions and consulting for corporate clients, she has also helped many smaller tenants that other brokers would pass by. In fact, she weathered one market slump in the 1980s by completing 60 deals of no more than 2,000 square feet each. Among her goals is to help Transwestern hire the best brokers available and to help individual brokers elevate their practice. She has long been involved with mentoring young women, some of whom are now successful in their own right, and plans to continue doing so.

Grace Huebscher
Since starting Beech Street Capital in late 2009, president and CEO Grace Huebscher has built the company into one of the most successful and well-regarded commercial real estate lenders in the country. For instance, in 2012, Beech Street once again doubled its performance with $4 billion in originations. Before founding the company, she held several management positions in multifamily housing at Fannie Mae. Prior to that, Huebscher was the CEO of National Cooperative Bank Mortgage Co., where she expanded its secondary market capabilities by building the first CMBS platform for originations in the days before RTC market activity. She's also been active in lending in New York City for Security Pacific and Chase Manhattan Bank. She currently serves on the Fannie Mae DUS Advisory Council, is vice chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association's Multifamily Steering Committee and is on the ULI's Multifamily Silver Council and the Real Estate Roundtable's President's Council.

Lenore Janis
“There may be someone, somewhere, who's in the architecture/engineering/construction business or CRE industry, who has been buried under a rock for the past 33 years and hasn't heard of Lenore Janis and Professional Women in Construction, but one would be hard pressed to find him or her,” says Andy Frankl, CEO of Ibex Construction. “If the person hasn't heard of Lenore, he or she is sure to have felt her influence.” A pioneer in an industry where women were barely acknowledged, if at all, Janis was among a dozen founders of Professional Women in Construction 33 years ago. In the early 1980s, she lobbied Washington, DC and Albany to set percentage goals for woman-owned business enterprises at a time when there were no such goals. Since 1995, she has devoted herself full-time to PWC's growth and development; during her presidency, the organization has added chapters up and down the East Coast.

Jean Kane
As one of the only female CEOs in Twin Cities commercial real estate, leading 300-plus Colliers International | Minneapolis-St. Paul and Welsh employees in disciplines ranging from brokerage to construction, Jean Kane has become an industry leader and integral member of the sector. She led Welsh—where she's worked for 26 of her 28 years in the industry—to its 2011 affiliation with Colliers as president and COO, and after becoming CEO last year she made the strategic decision to take a majority shareholder position in the company she runs, helping to position it to apply for a Women's Business Enterprise National Council certification. Kane was the first woman to serve on NAIOP's national executive committee, and was nominated and selected by NAIOP to become vice chairman and executive director in 2013. She'll become the national organization's chairman in 2014.

Mary Ann King
Coming to Moran & Co. in 1983 after leading a team of workout specialists that handled busted condo deals for Continental Illinois National Bank, Mary Ann King brought a similar skill set to bear for her new employer. Following the multifamily overbuilding of the mid-1980s, she restructured the debt and equity on more than 5,000 apartments. After Moran & Co. formed its brokerage division in 1994, King sold the first apartment property ever listed by the firm. Since then, she and her team have been responsible for about 50% of its sales volume, along with establishing the standards for how assets are valued and marketed. She became the company's president in 2002 and also oversees the California region as its managing partner. From 2006 to 2008, King was chairman of the National Multi Housing Council, and remains on the organization's executive committee.

Laurie Lustig-Bower
Laurie Lustig-Bower's industry career has been with one firm: CBRE, where she's been a superstar of investment sales. She has handled more than $5 billion in multifamily property sales in the Los Angeles area, including $500 million worth over the past 12 months. Early in her CBRE tenure, she wrote a business plan proposing the team she then formed and now leads. Lustig-Bower is the lead on marketing Metropolis, a full-city block entitled for 1.65 million square feet of high-rise development in Downtown Los Angeles, and is also marketing a full block in Glendale, CA for Citi Bank. For 2010, 2011 and 2012, she ranked as the top producer nationwide in CBRE's Private Capital Group. Not only the numbers have earned Lustig-Bower recognition: she has been honored by CREW with its Renaissance Award for an outstanding career, and within CBRE with the Larry Perrish Award for ethics and integrity.

Constance Moore
At BRE Properties in San Francisco, Connie Moore has served as president since 2004, and added the CEO title a year later. Her association with the firm, however, goes back longer than that: it was where she began her industry career in 1977 as an entry-level analyst while still an undergraduate. Before her 2002 return to BRE—a West Coast multifamily REIT with $3.5 billion of assets as of Dec. 31, 2012—she was managing director of Security Capital Group & Affiliates. Between 1993 and 2002, Moore held several executive positions with Security Capital Group, including co-chairman and chief operating officer of Archstone Communities Trust. She held the same position at Security Capital Atlantic Inc., a predecessor of Archstone, playing an instrumental role in its IPO. Moore chaired the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts in 2009 and currently is chair of the Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics Policy Advisory Board at the University of California at Berkeley.

Bliss Morris
Amid the S&L meltdown and the formation of the Resolution Trust Corp. in 1989, Bliss Morris launched First Financial Network, and the loan sale advisory firm counted the RTC among its biggest clients in its early years. A sunset clause shuttered the RTC in 1995, but under Morris' leadership, FFN has been an industry pioneer, handling sales of loans and other assets in 28 countries. Over the past five years, FFN has executed over 33 transactions for the FDIC—where Morris worked from 1985 until launching FFN—totaling $13.6 billion. For nearly a quarter century, Morris has been directly involved in assisting government agencies, central banks and money center, regional and community banks in developing strategies for selling performing and non-performing loans.

Jeanne Myerson
Since joining the Swig Co. in 1997, Jeanne Myerson has implemented a strategy that has significantly broadened the company's scope. Under her leadership as president and CEO, the company has made a smooth transition from its roots in the hotel sector to become a recognized urban office investor and manager. It now controls a portfolio of more than nine million square feet concentrated in coastal gateway markets, including its native San Francisco as well as New York City. Yet Myerson is not one to sit still. “Among my more specific goals: to guide my company in taking advantage of changing market and capital-market opportunities to create tremendous value...and insure that we are known for our work quality, smarts and integrity,” she tells Real Estate Forum.

Mary Jane Olhasso
A recognized leader in economic development, Mary Jane Olhasso has a track record of promoting growth. She was the City of Ontario's ED director for 12 years, helping make it one of the fastest-growing regions in SoCal. She then spent three years as Economic Development Agency administrator for the County of San Bernardino, implementing programs that led to major development projects, corporate relocations and expansions and an increase in job opportunities for residents of the county, the largest in the US by area. Currently she's assistant executive officer of finance and administration for the County of San Bernardino, responsible for all its fiscal and financial administrative operations.

Nancy Pacher
As the first female attorney at Katten Muchin Gitles Zavis Pearl & Galler, Nancy Pacher helped pave the way for the women attorneys who came thereafter. The mid-1970s law firm stint also determined her future career path: commercial real estate. She left Katten in 1980 to take a job at tenant rep firm Howard Ecker & Co., where her skills as a tough negotiator became apparent. Her former employer became a beneficiary of that deal-making acumen when she represented Katten in its move from Chicago's East Side to anchor 525 W. Monroe, the Tishman Speyer project that spurred office development west of the Chicago River. In 1984, Pacher joined US Equities Realty, where she became director of real estate consulting and brokerage, charged with growing the nascent division. Since 1993, when Pacher was made a principal and partner at US Equities, she has also been its president and COO.

Daun Paris
As president of Eastern Consolidated, which she co-founded in 1981 with Peter Hauspurg, Daun Paris is among the few women leading a commercial brokerage. She has led the New York City-based firm, which garners annual sales of up to $4 billion, both by mentoring brokers individually and providing strategic direction for the company as a whole. For example, before the recession set in, Paris recognized the market opportunities to come and launched the Loan Sales and Turnaround Group. She was instrumental in creating Eastern's Retail Sales Division, hiring veteran broker Adelaide Polsinelli to run it; sales for that division topped $200 million in its first quarter of operation. “What we see in real estate today is actually a microcosm of society as a whole, with women branching into the many areas that had been typically male dominated,” she comments. “Women are no longer a rarity.”

Anne S. Pfeiffer
A JPMorgan employee since 1979, Anne Pfeiffer joined the firm as senior finance officer, coming to the company from Coopers & Lybrand, where she was a supervising accountant. She has since served JPMorgan in several capacities, including the head of the Finance Group, senior asset manager and acquisitions officer. Now a managing director, Pfeiffer is the head of US Real Estate Commingled Funds and is the portfolio manager responsible for the overall management and performance of the JPMorgan Strategic Property Fund. She calls upon extensive experience in the acquisition and management of institutional-quality real estate in a variety of property types and locations. Between 2002 and 2008, she was on the board of directors of the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries, including serving as NCREIF's president in 2007 and 2008.

Karen Pribnow
For more than 25 years, Karen Pribnow—who joined the company in a clerical role in 1969—has been in charge of NorthMarq Capital's commercial loan servicing. During this time, she grew the servicing platform's staff from five employees to more than 100, and the servicing portfolio from $500 million across 500 loans to over $41 billion and 5,600 loans on behalf of 50 life insurance companies, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Ginnie Mae and more than a dozen CMBS conduits. Within NorthMarq, Pribnow is seen as the primary reason that the company consistently gets high ratings from borrowers and numerous capital sources. For Freddie Mac in particular, Pribnow's department has achieved an Above Average primary servicer rating from Standard & Poor's. At year's end, Pribnow will retire from NorthMarq after more than 40 years of service to the industry.

Elysia Ragusa
In a long list of leaders with whom he's worked—including Jim Didion, Michael Colacino and Roger Staubach—plus a roster of 25 leaders of various client firms, Elysia Ragusa is “in the top three or four,” says Kenneth Sandstad, senior managing director of the Sandstad Group. She is “dynamic, smart, driven, tough, inquisitive and very persuasive,” he says. She learned the industry at Staubach's side, serving as his first lieutenant at the Staubach Co. as it grew dramatically from 2001 to 2007, eventually merging with Jones Lang LaSalle. Today, as a senior managing director, Ragusa runs JLL's Austin, TX office. The recipient of two masters degrees, Ragusa is simply “one of the most outstanding professionals in the business.”

Sonia Ransom
Among the leading CRE attorneys on the West Coast, Sonia Ransom is co-chair of the land use practice at Allen Matkins, based in San Francisco. She's highly regarded for her extensive experience in this area, handling multiple major development projects throughout Northern and Southern California. Currently Ransom serves as land use counsel on the redevelopment of the former Boeing/NASA site in Downey, CA into a mixed-use project of more than 1.5 million square feet, and as lead land use lawyer representing Hillwood Development Co. LLC in the entitlement of a 1,770-acre development in Simi Valley, CA. Among other accolades, she has been recognized by CREW-LA as a woman in real estate who has transformed the real estate landscape of Los Angeles.

Lynn Reich
Not one to rest on her laurels—even after arranging more than 40 million square feet of transactions in recent years—Lynn Reich's production over the past 12 months has totaled $85 million and seven million square feet of transactions. Even during the busy holiday season, she completed two lease transactions totaling 1.4 million square feet and a total consideration of $34 million with one major client. During this same time, Reich, an SVP at Colliers International, was named a top 10% national broker by Colliers, out of nearly 2,000 across the US. Additionally, she was appointed to the advisory board for Industrial Women in Real Estate. In more altruistic endeavors, in June 2012 Reich led an 11-person team of women in commercial real estate to walk 39 miles in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. The team raised over $60,000 collectively, while Reich created a separate giving page and became the number-one fundraiser for the entire event, which drew 2,800 participants.

Dale Ann Reiss
“One of the most recognizable women in commercial real estate,” as the Wall Street Journal described her in 2008, Dale Ann Reiss counts more than 40 years' experience in finance and CRE. In 1985, she founded the Chicago office of Los Angeles-based Kenneth Leventhal, which 10 years later merged with Ernst & Young. Reiss became national leader of what was then known as the Ernst & Young Kenneth Leventhal Real Estate Group in 1999, replacing Stan Ross. That title, and sphere of responsibilities, eventually expanded to global and Americas director of real estate, a position she held until retiring from E&Y in 2008. Retirement from a high-visibility post has hardly meant winding down her activity. Reiss is managing director of Artemis Advisors, her restructuring and consulting firm, and serves as senior managing director of Brock Capital Group LLC as well as chairman of its affiliate, Brock Real Estate LLC.

Lynn Schenk
“Commercial real estate has long been considered one of the last male bastions in the service industries,” says Lynn Schenck. It was especially true in 1978, when the future managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle's St. Louis office decided to exchange her wings as a flight attendant for a career in CRE. “Back then, many of the men running commercial real estate properties would steer females to administrative positions or property management. Women getting into sales were usually encouraged to try residential first, which has never been an avenue into commercial brokerage.” Yet through perseverance, Schenck landed a spot as a commercial broker. At her first SIOR meeting, she had to inform male colleagues that she—and not her husband, who also attended the meeting—was the broker. She went on to serve as the organization's first female president.

Darcy Stacom
Darcy Stacom was crowned the “Queen of the Skyscrapers” by the Wall Street Journal in 1997, an accolade that came her way even before she crafted deals that have entered Manhattan record books. In 2006, Stacom helped to arrange the $5.4-billion sale of the Peter Cooper Village/Stuyvesant Town apartment complex on behalf of owner and developer MetLife. Four years later, she was instrumental in putting Midtown South on the map with Google's $1.8-billion purchase of 111 Eighth Ave., where the Internet giant was already the biggest tenant. She has completed more than $60 billion in sales, financing, joint venture, leasehold and development transactions in her career, and was named CBRE's top producer globally for 2012. Co-head of CBRE's Investment Properties Institutional Group in New York City, Stacom has been a leader in advancing the inclusion of women in the industry, and is a past recipient of the firm's Women's Network's Endurance of Spirit Award.

Tara Stacom
Leasing assignments don't come any higher-profile than the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, but serving as leasing agent for One World Trade Center is just one feather in Tara Stacom's cap. In a 32-year career, she has arranged more than 40 million square feet of office transactions that range from gross and net leases to synthetic and ground leases, build-to-suits and property acquisition and dispositions. The executive vice chairman at Cushman & Wakefield consistently ranks among the firm's top producing brokers nationally and regionally. With three overarching career goals on her agenda, Stacom has achieved two of them: ranking as C&W's top brokerage professional globally and securing the Real Estate Board of New York's Henry Hart Rice Award. The third is to be remembered for her leasing work at One World Trade, as her father, Matthew Stacom, is known for steering the leasing at the Sears Tower in Chicago.

Seena Stein
Against the backdrop of last year's acquisition of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank by BGC Partners, Stein completed leases on more than 400,000 square feet of space in the past 12 months. Having founded the firm's New Jersey office, the senior executive handles large deal brokerage and trains and mentors staff. She's doing good things too, it seems, in her down time: she won the 2012 Humanitarian Award from the American Conference on Diversity and she was awarded the NAIOP 2012 Humanitarian Award. Stein was a founding member of Industrial/Commercial Real Estate Women and SIOR. She serves on the boards of directors for the Industrial & Office Real Estate Brokers Association and NAIOP, and is on the NJ governor's real estate advisory board.

Mary Ann Tighe
Among the first names one associates with the phrase “CRE legends,” Tighe has been a key player in transforming New York's skyline over the past 28 years. After working as a curator at the Smithsonian Institute, an arts advisor to then-Vice President Walter Mondale and an executive in the television industry, she profiled her future boss, Edward S. Gordon, for Manhattan Inc. magazine before coming to work for him. Her signature deals in recent years have included Conde Nast's relocation into 1.2 million square feet at the new One World Trade Center and Coach's acquisition of a 740,000-square-foot office condominium in what will be the first tower at Related Cos.' Hudson Yards. CEO of the New York tri-state region at CBRE, Tighe is a seven-time winner of the Real Estate Board of New York's Deal of the Year awards, and in 2010 began a three-year term as the association's first female chairman.