To retain diverse talent, commercial real estate companies must "really intentionally create" professional development initiatives that identify and showcase midlevel strong performers to senior leadership, according to Nadine Augusta, chief diversity equity and inclusion officer at Cushman & Wakefield. 

"What I find is often it's not just the development, it's more visibility and connections and relationships with senior leadership and the ability to showcase skills," Augusta said Tuesday at a panel moderated by Megan Abraham, CEO of The Goldie Initiative, at this year's GlobeSt ELITE Women of Influence event. "Often it's not that they need a ton of development. It may be that you have strong talented women in the organization who are getting mentored, but they don't have the ability to showcase those skills to decision makers. So you want to think about being intentional about creating opportunities for that to happen."

Augusta's fellow panelist Allison Weiss, principal and founder of CRE Recruiting, agreed, noting that such focus "builds stickiness" with program participants.