Brokers and officials from commercial real estate firm Next Realty, which operates a busy office in Chicago, are in Las Vegas this week to attend the International Council of Shopping Centers’ RECon, the biggest convention serving the brokers, developers and managers who build, operate and lease space at shopping centers across the globe.
Next Realty’s Eteri Zaslavsky, who in 2012 led the raise of Next Realty Fund VII, a private equity fund targeting retail and parking investment opportunities, and Rebekah Carlson, director of marketing at the company, are blogging from the convention this week for REJournals.com.
A league of their own, Rebekah Carlson
I spent Saturday with a group of women in real estate. Was it a social/political action committee? Perhaps an event to raise awareness for some cause? Was it an official women-in-real estate event? Not in the slightest. We were just spending time together, being people. So when the conversation turned to gender, real estate and the intersection of the two, I paid careful attention.
Remember the movie A League of their Own? If not, let me refresh your memory. Baseball investors needed revenue during World War II, and sent their scouts to find talented girls, put them on teams and fill the stands. The girls played, and played hard, perfecting their craft and achieving some measure of success in spite of great opposition and critics’ review of everything from attire to familial relations.
Like the girls in the movie wanted recognition as baseball players first and personalities second, the overarching conclusion I came to in my conversation is that these women in real estate find – and want to find – their gender largely irrelevant.
The women I know in real estate are in the industry because they love it and are talented, clearly, in a league of their own as well.