Each December, Midwest Real Estate News runs its Commercial Real Estate Hall of Fame issue, higlighting the careers of the industry’s top professionals. We also run a selection of these profiles on our Web site throughout the year. Here’s a look at the career of one 2011 Hall of Fame inductee, Martha Nevanen with Marquette Real Estate Group.
Martha Nevanen Vice President, Marketing and Communications Marquette Real Estate Group Minneapolis
Reporters seeking last-minute interviews on commercial real estate trends know just how well Martha Nevanen does her job. So do the commercial real estate professionals at such companies as RJM Construction, United Properties and Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq.
As vice president for marketing and communications with Marquette Real Estate, Nevanen works daily with reporters, editors and many of the biggest names in the commercial real estate business, all to make sure that the companies that make up Marquette are able to effectively tell their stories. When you see an official from NorthMarq Capital quoted in the Minneapolis Star Tribune or one of the top producers from Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq profiled in a trade magazine, the odds are good that Nevanen made the interview happen.
It’s an important job that Nevanen holds. It’s more difficult today for companies to be heard. There is constant competition from blogs, Web sites, Tweets and Facebook posts. Nevanen, though, has used the latest social-media tools, along with long-held relationships with industry reporters, to help Marquette’s real estate companies cut through the noise.
Nevanen directs the marketing efforts for such companies as NorthMarq Capital, RJM Construction, United Properties and Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq. Marquette Real Estate serves as the holding company for each of these firms. Her job is to promote the milestones, acheivements, honors and successes of these companies. And no one does a better job of this than does Nevanen.
Nevanen best displayed her skills recently when she took the lead on promoting two major rebrandings of Marquette Real Estate companies. Just this year, Nevanen managed the rebranding of NorthMarq when this company merged with the Minnesota office of Cushman & Wakefield.
In 2008, Nevanen was responsible for rebranding United Properties, which had reorganized into three separate entities under the umbrella of Marquette Real Estate Group.
In both instances, Nevanen was able to distill what could have been complicated messages into ones that members of the real estate press were able to quickly grasp and report on.
Outside of her work, Nevanen finds time to give back to her community. She volunteers for such organizations as CornerHouse, NAIOP and IABC. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, one of the top journalism programs in the country.
