CRE’s Wonder Women

NEW YORK CITY–Earlier this year Wells Fargo & Co. analysts Jeffrey Donnelly and Dori Kesten took a look at the the gender makeup of boards of 165 US REITs from 2006 to 2017 and found that the REITs that had a greater-than-average number of female directors outperformed REITs with all-male boards by 2.33 percentage points over five years.

So it is good news for companies, and their shareholders that the number of women on boards at commercial real estate companies are increasing. This is according to another study, one by ISS Analytics, which found that women accounted for 31% — the highest percentage in 10 years — of new board members for the first five months of 2018. Unfortunately the data also showed that women are not making significant inroads into leadership positions on these boards.

So it goes for women in commercial real estate. The space is crying out for more gender diversity — for good reason, quantifiable reason as the Wells Fargo study showed — and slowly it is getting there.

But besides delving into numbers we should also listen to the stories of women who have made inroads into our industry to see what they have accomplished. This is what we will set out to do in Real Estate Forum’s upcoming 25th Anniversary issue — aka our Women of Influence issue — which will be devoted to the achievements of women in commercial real estate, and the industry’s efforts toward diversification and inclusion.

Not only will we highlight women across the business who have significantly influenced the market or had outstanding successes in the past year, but we will also profile new inductees into our Hall of Fame and shine a spotlight on rising stars in our Women to Watch feature.

There is still time to reserve a nomination for candidates who have made a name for themselves through exceptional transactional volume, or have impacted their company’s success or contributed to the industry at large.

To nominate someone go here to fill out the online form.