What has been the most rewarding project or deal you’ve worked on in your career, and why? I have just started a project with a young woman investing in her first industrial property. When we find the property that will fund her early retirement, F.I.R.E. style dreams, that will be my favorite and most rewarding project because women need to invest in commercial real estate. Casually talking about finances, money and raising money should be far more normal for women than it is. This will not be a short-term project but I hope to celebrate her first closing within a year.

What drew you to commercial real estate, and what keeps you passionate? I was drawn to CRE because I’m a second generation CRE broker, and investor. I was around the business all my life. I am most passionate about learning, educating and solving puzzles every day. I work mostly with high net worth individual or partnership investors and business owners. Real estate fuels their bottom line, if they are doing it right, and I like to help them work through the decision matrix that allows their companies to operate with higher margins and their investments to hit their goals.

What advice would you give to a woman considering a career in commercial real estate? Don’t listen to the naysayers. CRE is a wonderful career for a woman. Whether you are a woman or a man, however, the most important thing to know is that this business is started in the grind. 50-60 hour weeks with no return on the invested time for the better part of a year and little validation that you will ever make it in this business. Then, one day, sometime after the 1,000^th cold call, it will all fall into place.

What’s a challenge you faced early in your career, and how did you overcome it? My toughest early career challenge was finding my voice. Mentors, family, friends, I had so many people advising me in this business to operate their way. But, their way didn’t work for me, so finding my lane and being confident enough to drive my career in a way that served my clients and me but didn’t look like the careers of any of the (kind and generous) men who advised me was a hurdle. It probably took me to long to be myself-comfortably oversharing and even joking about the seriousness of real estate’s bottom line. I’m not for everyone and that’s okay.