Why Aren't There More Women Leaders Visible Within the Commercial Real Estate Industry?

[Jim Searing]

As managing editor, I get the great privilege of scanning the world of commercial real estate each day, selecting articles, videos and other content that hopefully is interesting and insightful to the CREOpoint community. The other day I looked the featured videos and all I could see were male commentators--five male talking heads at one time! Since the videos reflect media coverage, that led me to ask 'why aren't there more women leaders visible within the commercial real estate industry?' Does media just focus on legendary investors such as Sam Zell, Bill Rudin, Richard LeFrak-types--all of whom are very articulate, insightful, smart and successful? Oh, and I almost forgot 'The Donald', who adds enormous entertainment value to his discussions.

So where are the women? Who will be the up and comers in this industry? What will it take to give women more visibility and leadership within commercial real estate?

[Jennifer Azzopardi]

Change of mentality all around perhaps??

[Jim Searing]

Interesting graphic from Catalyst as of 2008. When compared to the Fortune 500 in 2008, the percentage of women directors was 16.2% in F500; 17.9% in Real Estate companies. The percentage of women in corporate officer positions was 15.7% in F500; 9.5% in Real Estate companies. (source: Catalyst)

http://www.catalyst.org/

[Martha Paschal]

I would agree with Jennifer. This is still an industry which places a value on the hierarchical approach to leadership, and doesn't reward a more collaborative model.

[Carl Jones, Jr.]

This is a very good question and I'm not exactly sure, but I think that the industry has been dominated by middle aged males for so long, Women are just getting the opportunity to showcase their talents, the question could even go a step further in asking why are the beautiful women put out front