CRE Women, You've Come a Long Way, Baby

Marti Mang, a senior vice president in TotalBank’s corporate lending division, to ask her about the changes she’s witnessed in the field in part one of this exclusive interview.

MIAMI—Women occupy more senior vice president, managing director and partner roles in commercial real estate, and are more satisfied with their career success than ever, according to a comprehensive study by Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Network. With the release of the 2015 Benchmark Study Report: Women in Commercial Real Estate , CREW Network has produced the most extensive industry research to date over an unprecedented 10-year span, tracking and analyzing specialization, compensation and career achievement by gender. Against that backdrop, GlobeSt.com caught up with Marti Mang , a senior vice president in TotalBank’s corporate lending division, to ask her about the changes she’s witnessed in the field in part one of this exclusive interview. In part two, Mang will discuss how women can strike work-life balance and the importance of mentors. GloebeSt.com: What changes have you seen for women in commercial real estate during your career, for better or worse? Mang: Since my career goes back for more than 40 years, the changes that I have seen have been tremendous. When I first started into the working world, women were more or less limited to jobs like secretary, nurse or teacher. Women were not able to borrower money in their own name and needed to have a man as a co-signer, as women did not have credit in their own name. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act mandated that credit scores be reported for both the husband and the wife and that brought many changes. A position like I have today would have been filled only by a man. So there has been tremendous change in the status of working women over the years, and yet we are seeing that we still have not reached parity in commercial real estate . We have come a long way, but we still have a way to go. I am very encouraged to see that the research shows that women are entering the labor force with compensation fairly level with those of men. However, the survey shows that with the passage of time the salary gap starts to appear once more. Some of this is due to the disruption that happens in a woman’s life because of child bearing. However, according to the research conducted by the Pew Foundation, more of it is because of risk aversion and the inability to reach a quick decision. Some of this could also be attributed to the smaller degree of aspiration for women to keep climbing the corporate ladder as shown in the CREW research. Globest.com: What advice would you give to women that are considering a career in CRE? Mang: I would tell them that there is a tremendous opportunity to succeed in this field. The CREW Network website lists about 40 different fields of endeavor that are considered to be a jobs within the field of commercial real estate , including positions in law, banking and brokerage. Additionally, there are many other specialties such as environmental engineering, real estate title work and commercial real estate insurance. A number of positions, such as commercial real estate broker, offer the opportunity to attain high levels of compensation based on successful efforts on the part of the employee.