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January 2017
surrounding access to credit, commission-based pay and a clubby, male-dominated culture have raised the barrier to entry.
For those who have broken in, the industry can seem tone-deaf at best and
impenetrable at worst. CBREs Mary Ann Tighe, one of Manhattans top commercial
brokers, recalled in a recent speech that after she was appointed REBNYs first
female chairman in 2010, one of the first questions she was asked was whether she
would change the menu at the trade groups annual banquet a job she made very
clear was not hers.
Don Peebles, the citys highest-profile black developer, who had been one of three
black members on REBNYs roughly 150-member board of governors, recently quit
before the end of his two-year term. The agenda that was discussed was never a
progressive agenda, he said, referring to diversity issues. I thought REBNY in
general had lost sight of what city youre doing business in.
(Asked for comment, a REBNY spokesman said, Mr. Peebles was a member in
good standing, and wed welcome him back any time.)
In contrast, outside of real estate, race and gender issues have bubbled to the
surface across a range of powerful and moneyed sectors.
Don Peebles
In response to growing criticism and a push from government regulators, Wall Street
and Silicon Valley firms have in recent years released their employee demographic data and instituted targeted recruiting efforts.
More and more, women and minorities within industries are speaking out. Last summers sexual-harassment scandal at Fox News
laid bare a culture of sexism at one of the most successful and impenetrable news empires. In the NFL, meanwhile, San Francisco
49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernicks national-anthem protest brought the Black Lives Matter movement into the sports arena.
And of course, Hillary Clintons failed presidential campaign against Donald Trump, one of the industrys own who called
Mexicans rapists and once boasted that he could grab women by the pussy has prompted discussions about race and
misogyny within politics and beyond.
But in many ways, NYC real estate has always operated by its own rules, and according to those interviewed, diversity is still an
uncomfortable topic. Many firms, including Cushman & Wakefield, among the top three largest commercial brokerages in the world,
declined to participate or have any of their brokers interviewed in this story.
To be sure, the industry has become increasingly international, especially as the flow of foreign
money grows. Today, many of New Yorks biggest real estate players hail from countries such
as Iran, Syria, Israel and China.
And not everyone viewed real estates gender and racial imbalance as a problem. A number
of women said they had never found their gender to be an impediment in their careers.
There has never been a ceiling, said Daun Paris, who co-founded Eastern Consolidated in
1981 with her husband, Peter Hauspurg. Whether youre a man or a woman, its about being
at the top of your game and offering a service.
Similarly, Jennifer Bernell, director of development at Kushner Companies, said, I think its all
about proving yourself, no matter who you are.
Still, others argued that issues of gender and racial equality are often either misunderstood or ignored in the industry, addressed
piecemeal rather than treated as a broader problem.
Thorobird Companies Thomas Campbell, a black, Manhattan-based affordable-housing developer, said the issue isnt whether
individuals have personally experienced discrimination but whether groups or classes of people have. You have to differentiate
between holding one person back and holding a group of people back, he said.
Kendrick Harris, a black real estate attorney at the law firm Goldstein Hall who heads the Council of Urban Real Estate, said
diversity has become an ugly code word in the place of affirmative action.
The simple answer throughout the industry, especially from those with the most influence, is that this is a business, and we dont get
into social issues, he said. But thats a little bit of a cop-out, because our social issues frame our professional interactions.
He added, You cant operate in a vacuum.
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Chris Okada of Okada & Company and Angela Howard of Jonathan Rose Companies
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pitches by cold-calling as many as 50 to 70 people a day. Some have likened the first few years to a kind of hazing, where brokers
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must submit to menial tasks demanded by their superiors. Its like frat life. They get beaten up, said Camille Renshaw, head of
commercial sales at Ten-X, an online commercial brokerage.
And unlike residential brokerage, where a rookie can start by notching a few rentals on his or her belt, putting together a commercial
deal takes time and luck. Many dont make it. Especially for blacks and Hispanics, who have historically ranked behind whites on
the socioeconomic ladder, the jobs are high-risk for those without a financial safety net.
Thats why some in the industry, including REBNYs Banks, have argued that real estate loses the brightest minority candidates to
other industries, like finance.
Even among those who enter the field, the income volatility along with the long hours can make retention difficult, especially for
women who have children and particularly in the notoriously scrappy tenant leasing world, the easiest point of entry in commercial
brokerage.
In short, brokerage industrywide can be feast or famine. And it requires a certain type of personality, many people said.
Faith Hope Consolo, the chairman of Ellimans retail leasing and sales division, said that while she was in a financial position to
attempt a career in brokerage, not everyone is.
You not only need nerves of steel, you have to live on the edge, she said.
Wonder women
In October, the Commercial Real Estate Womens (CREW) Network held a three-day conference at the New York Hilton. The event,
which draws nearly 1,500 people from all over the world, is the largest of its kind for women in commercial real estate.
On one of the mornings, a psychologist named Amy Cuddy stood before the female audience, teaching them to perform a Wonder
Woman-like power pose to build confidence. Throughout the lunch, the women jokingly mimicked the Amazonian hero, defiantly
standing with their legs apart and their hands on their hips.
But the highlight of the day was a speech by Tighe.
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At 68, Tighe is in a rarified group in commercial brokerage that includes Tara Stacom, who works at Cushman & Wakefield, and
her sister Darcy Stacom, who heads up investment sales at CBRE. In 2002, after 18 years of rising in the ranks at Edward S.
Gordon Company later Insignia/ESG Inc. Tighe was appointed the head of CBREs tri-state operations.
Standing in front of a crimson-lit background, Tighe took off her glasses and played to the
crowd.
When I look out at this room filled with commercial real estate women professionals, women
from all over North America, from every sector of our industry, I have this moment when I
realize how very far weve come, she said. I know in my heart that the days of being the only
woman at the negotiating table are over.
The numbers, however, paint a much grimmer picture.
Among the citys eight largest commercial brokerages (by number of employees), men on
average make up at least 73 percent of brokers, according to a TRD gender analysis of
names on state licensing data.
Cushman & Wakefield, which has more brokers than any other commercial firm in the city with 486, also has the highest share of
men at 73 percent, while CBRE, with 462 brokers, is at least 70 percent male.
Likewise, a review of the websites of the citys top commercial brokerages shows a consistent scarcity of women at the top,
reflecting the much-talked-about C-suite gap that plagues corporate America.
Cushman, which is in the thick of a reorganization of its top brass, has no women in upper management. Newmark Grubb Knight
Frank has four, while CBRE a public company has four female senior corporate executives, roughly 17 percent of the firms Csuite. JLL, which is also public, has two women on its global executive board. None of the firms would confirm their diversity
numbers.
The gap translates into pay. CREW, for example, found that women in real estate make 23 percent less than men across North
America.
Suzy Reingold, the former COO of Cushmans New York tri-state office, noted that breaking into the C-suite is even more difficult
than becoming a star broker.
Youre not judged on new clients. Whether you get ahead or not is judged by men. Because above you are all men, said Reingold,
who sued Cushman for gender and age discrimination in 2013 after getting passed over for a promotion.
For women, it means that critical companywide policies that arguably impact them disproportionately such as compensation
structure, recruitment, work culture and family-friendly benefits are largely left in the hands of men.
Its hard to have children and not lose your place on the ladder, Belinda Schwartz, who heads up the real estate practice at law firm
Herrick, Feinstein, told TRD when asked about the most difficult hurdle women face.
Many women, even those who have made it to the table, spoke of an industry where
sexism still prevails, where it is implicitly understood that men will be men, and
where women must walk a fine line between being smart and not being overly
aggressive.
Lisa Bevacqua, senior vice president and director of asset management at
Silverstein Properties, said shes noticed that shes consistently ignored in meetings
when others in the room dont know her title. Men from other companies, she said,
often only address each other, even when she specifically asks a question. She said
the behavior, while unintentional, is revealing.
Thats the default, she said. They default to assuming that the man would be the
one they will be working with.
Alison Novak, a principal at the development firm Hudson Companies, recounted a
meeting where a man from another company repeatedly referred to another woman
they were working with as that girl.
One female real estate attorney, who asked not to be named, said she lost out on a
client who felt that she couldnt be aggressive enough as a woman. He told her, I
Maryanne Gilmartin
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Maryanne Gilmartin
There are currently at least three pending discrimination lawsuits filed by women against major real estate companies in New York
[see sidebar on page 45].
In general, female developers are few and far between. High-level women executives at development companies include those who
were born into family-run firms, such as Amy Rose, Helena Durst, Samantha Rudin, Veronica Mainetti and Michele Medaglia. A few
others have ascended the ranks at big firms, such as Extells Raizy Haas, Forest City Ratners Susi Yu and Lend Leases Melissa
Burch. And theres a smaller subset of women who have launched their own development companies. Toby Moskovits and Abby
Hamlin are among them.
MaryAnne Gilmartin, who was named president and CEO of Forest City Ratner in 2013 after 19 years at the company, is perhaps
the industrys most prominent female development executive.
All told, her company like Extell, Silverstein and a handful of others has a relatively high percentage of women.
Women represent 60 percent of our development team, Gilmartin said. Unfortunately, I think, thats not the typical statistic.
She added: Its not enough for people to talk about diversity and meritocracy in the workplace or say that women are on an even
playing field. It has to be true.
Gilmartin recalled a meeting 10 years ago when she accompanied Bruce Ratner then the firms CEO to negotiate a lease
renewal with the head of a finance company that was a tenant in a Forest City building. Gilmartin said the male executive treated her
as if she were being interviewed for a job, peppering her with questions about her experience level.
He attempted to rob me of my dignity right there in the room as a way to create the upper hand in the negotiations or just because
thats how he viewed women, she said. Bruce really drew the line. It wasnt a great feeling knowing that I could have stood up for
myself but I was intimidated by the environment, because there were three white men and myself in a room. I should have been able
to say, This is not acceptable, stand up and walk out, but instead I relied on Bruce to do that for me.
Many women TRD spoke to at least ones whove made it to the top of the industry said they accept real estates maledominated culture as a fact of life.
You cant cry or be a whiner, said Adelaide Polsinelli, an investment sales broker at Eastern Consolidated. This is not for the faint
of heart.
Wendy Silverstein, the incoming CEO of New York REIT and a former top executive at Vornado Realty Trust, echoed that point.
As a woman in any male-dominated industry, you learn to expect to be treated differently at times, she said. If you are a man and
you are smart and tough, you are called a good negotiator. If the same is true of a woman, she is usually called a bitch.
Despite its impenetrable circles, the tantalizing (albeit slightly clichd) appeal of NYC real estate has always been its potential for a
pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps war story.
Women have their place in that narrative as well.
Tighe tells a story about a lunch meeting she had with her then-boss at Insignia/ESG in 1997. After asking him what it would take to
become vice chair of the company, he took out a pen and sketched the companys male-only hierarchy. This is why its never going
to happen, he told her.
Two years later, she was named vice chair.
Hwang, who left Cushman in 2015 to head the investment sales team at Meridian Capital, stands out because she is both Asian
and female. Early in her career, she was more self-conscious. Slights, she said, such as people failing to acknowledge her or shake
her hand, made her blame her gender, race and relative youth.
However, over the years, those fears subsided.
I realized its not really about me. Its more about issues, deals, and clients, she said. In the end, she added, I think we all speak
the same language. We are all deal people.
With regards to Cushman, she said, They did right by me.
Many women in development and commercial real estate said the presence of such trailblazers is a good sign. I think its very
important that theres visibility, said Burch, who leads Lend Leases new development platform. You need these role models,
women who are out there, showing you clear examples of being effective in the industry.
Angela Howard, a director at Jonathan Rose Companies and one of the few black women in development, had a similar take,
calling those trailblazing women in architecture and construction the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
She added: Its not there yet, but were moving in the right direction.
Yet while women have forged a path to
prominent roles in the industry, the same has
not been true for minority men.
They dont have trailblazers to follow, so
theyre blazing their own trails, said Ken
McIntyre, a consultant who previously led
MetLifes commercial lending team. You
burn a lot of fuel when youre blazing your own
trail.
Confronting reality
About four years ago, David Kramer needed
to come up with a family leave policy for his
growing development firm, Hudson Companies. He began by calling a few other companies. But the responses fell short.
Gabriel Silverstein of Angelic Real Estate and Karim Hutson of Genesis Companies
I got answers like, Our baby was well-timed. We had it on a long weekend, so I was back in the office Tuesday, he said.
Kramer saw a chance to repair a longstanding inequity in families.
I have three kids, and so, Ive gotten to know the dynamics of parenting pretty well, he said. I think its pretty consistent that most
mothers are pretty violently hostile towards dads overall because the truth is that parenting responsibilities arent 50/50.
Under his companys plan, all new parents, fathers included, receive three months of paid leave. The benefit rivals that of elite tech
companies in going far beyond what most private companies provide. Under the Family Medical Leave Act, employers with 50-plus
staffers are generally required to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth of a child.
Other companies have taken action as well.
Several years ago, as part of its hiring and recruitment efforts, Jonathan Rose Companies introduced a selection committee that
considers diversity in tandem with ability.
Its CEO founder, Jonathan Rose, who himself belongs to a real estate dynasty (he and Amy Rose are cousins), said he frequently
receives calls from well-connected industry colleagues asking if he can hire one of their friends or relatives. He now responds by
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