But all appear to share an aha moment where they realized their ideas could satisfy a demand in the tech marketplace and advance real estate’s operations that much more.  

Julie Blanc is co-founder and CEO of Rentana, a San Francisco Bay Area-based revenue management software platform for multifamily owners and property managers.

Rentana is an early-stage proptech startup that provides users with AI-powered transparency and recommendations, said Blanc, who was in financial services before starting the company in 2023.

“My background is in venture capital and scaling enterprise software companies as an operator, as well,” said Blanc. “I’ve been investing and partnering with proptech founders for over 12 years. That’s actually how this all came to be. The founding team includes engineers that I’ve admired from afar for quite some time, who I’ve wanted to work with and start something together. And some of our founding advisers have been close to multifamily.”

Blanc declined to talk about Rentana’s funding and client base, but said she was excited by the challenge of starting the company.

“We’re just getting started, but we really have big ambitions as a team. We feel very fortunate to be so supported by so many different people in this ecosystem, whether it be clients or advisers. It’s been a really nice time to be founding a new technology in proptech, and working with incredibly sophisticated customers.”

Elizabeth Chrystal is a principal at proptech venture capital firm Zigg Capital. She came to proptech by way of being CFO of chef David Chang’s Momofuku hospitality and packaged food group.

“I was involved in the building of the physical restaurants, which included me seeing all of the problems of the technology being quite antiquated and the cost overruns that are frequent in any type of construction, down to permitting and insurance, and the many products that an expanding restaurant is buying,” said Chrystal.

During that period, Chrystal crossed paths with Zigg co-founders Dave Eisenberg and Ryan Orley about one of their portfolio companies. She realized there was “a big opportunity in proptech that resonated very much with my experience as an operator. I was eager to combine what I had learned from my seven years at Momofuku with the investing thesis that they had done quite well in.”

Although she did not have an investment background, Chrystal had dabbled in restaurant angel investing while at Momofuku. Since joining Zigg in May 2023, she has been leading the firm’s efforts in consumer-facing and restaurant-related technologies, alongside the firm’s broader proptech focus.

“If, globally, only 2 percent of VC dollars are going to women, to me that indicates a really exciting, untapped talent pool that presents a compelling opportunity for whoever can be the partner to that group of talent,” said Chrystal. “We’re starting to invest our third fund now, and already it has more female founders than either of our prior funds. That’s not something that we’ve done by design. It is just reflective of us chasing the best talent globally and being aware of talent sources we might have overlooked.”

Eda Erol, CEO and founder at Poliark, an AI-enhanced 3D design firm for the built environment, was born in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, and came to the U.S. to study, earning her master’s in geographic information services technology from the University of Arizona. After returning to Turkey for work, in April 2021 Erol decided to start Poliark, which is headquartered in Manhattan.

Erol saw that the architecture, engineering and construction industry struggled with finding and using high-quality design software. She set about to solve that problem by creating Poliark, but didn’t quite expect the reaction to her new company, which last month was accepted into pre-seed investor Techstars’ latest accelerator cohort.

“What surprised me was how everyone in the architecture and engineering world is open to the new technologies, but not quite sure how to adopt them,” said Erol. “For example, with AI, regardless of the scale of the construction company, they are into it, because they want a solution to speed up the operations. But as they are more of a conventional company, it is hard for them to understand, let alone use the technology, and it’s hard to adopt it.”

Such hurdles are being met by Erol, who as a woman, immigrant and hijab-wearing Muslim, has confronted her own challenges.

“Of course, there’s always some prejudice, but then I still have roots in my home country,” said Erol. “I still have an R&D company there. So going back and forth and having roots in both countries actually helps. People do understand it. There have been some occasions when men or the companies were not comfortable in the first place, but, you know, AI is a technology that regardless of who found it, or where the company is, if the technology works it can break the barriers.”

Tiya Gordon is co-founder of itselectric, a Brooklyn-based EV charging startup that partners with property owners in cities across the U.S. who want to install a public curbside charger on their property.

Having been successful in design and operations across a range of disciplines for some of the country’s top firms and institutions, Gordon in July 2021 decided to “use design to wage war on the climate crisis.”

In co-founding itselectric, Gordon has brought her outsider’s perspective to proptech.

“I think the transformative, differentiating factor that my co-founder and I approached the problem with is a very different way than had previously been done in the United States,” Gordon said of itselectric’s technology and design. “It was a very fresh set of eyes on a problem that was previously treated in a very traditional way. That made a difference in not only the solution, but the way in which our solution was perceived publicly.”

As a female founder, Gordon doesn’t necessarily think proptech has a reputation as being male-dominated, but she has faced obstacles.

“I think that women continue to encounter barriers, and the trick to not having that detour your progress is to simply sidestep it,” Gordon said. “Where we find dismissive behaviors in the industry, it’s often based not on intentional bias, but sort of a bias that may have not been realized. It’s something we as a company have to understand is a barrier that we have to overcome.

“And I’d like to say that actually New York is an exceptional city, because there isn’t a lot of bias toward women within the city. I think you find it when you start to step out into the larger, nationwide industry, and you’re put into those realms of dinners and conferences and spaces that are designed for men and men’s activities. As a woman, you’re definitely an outsider in that space.”

Even attempts to level that gender gap can be comically inept, said Gordon.

“I can give you a little anecdote about that. Lately, I and other female founders in my space have been invited to these sessions that are designed to teach you the skills that you need to succeed in a male-dominated space. And I’m not joking when I say these skills are being listed as golfing, poker and video games.”

Despite such questionable insights, the idea that women need to engage in traditionally male social activities to be successful is not something Gordon wants to dwell on. It is worth observing, though, she said.

“We want to get to a place where the solutions are the focus and not the people behind them,” said Gordon. “I want to get to a point where we actually don’t have to look at gender in these stories. The only way that we’re going to get to that point is when there’s actual equity, because I don’t believe that there is a difference in quality in the businesses that women and men are creating.”

Valkyrie Holmes is the CEO and co-founder of Manhattan-based Faura, an assessment app designed to lower natural disaster home insurance premiums.

“Faura helps insurance companies and homeowners reduce their natural disaster risk with property and climate analytics,” said Holmes. “Essentially, we do digital risk assessments of both personal and small business properties, giving them the risk factors and ways to reduce their risk that tie directly into their premium. Then we’re able to give that data back to insurance companies to help them balance their portfolio.”

Born and raised in Las Vegas, Holmes co-founded Faura in January 2023 after internships at NASA and SpaceX, the latter of which became a full-time position.

And she’s 20. (Yes. Really.) 

“I was working in pretty simple space tech, kind of data science roles, at NASA and SpaceX, on commercial ride-share,” said Holmes. “Basically helping with electrical engineering on the same team that does a lot of the maintenance for companies that are sending things into space. Then I got a grant to pursue sustainability, and I’ve kind of been at the intersection of sustainability and insurance ever since high school.

“I did a couple of hackathons on wildfires and got really interested in natural disasters in the space surrounding that. I was working with a nonprofit called Napa Firewise back a couple summers ago, and realized that there’s a big knowledge gap between what homeowners understand about how to reduce their risk and what insurance companies and large stakeholders know about how to price that risk, how to take responsibility for that risk, and how to ultimately scale within a relatively hard market for disasters. Exploring that, I then realized that Faura could make a difference there.”

Having enrolled at Vanderbilt University — but taking three consecutive gap years to pursue her various interests — Holmes has quickly grown Faura. That has included securing a $400,000 pre-seed round in February, as well as having the startup selected in early-stage venture capital firm MetaProp’s most recent accelerator cohort.

While Holmes doesn’t accept the genius label, she does believe her intellectual and business development is the way of the future.

“I think the biggest thing that we’re going to start to see is a shift in where companies like Google are putting degrees online and you can get certificates,” said Holmes. “And, at the end of it, it’s less about the paper and the time that you spent on the course, it’ll be more about, ‘OK, what did you build during this time? What can you point to and say that’s yours?’ It doesn’t even have to be at a big tech company. It can just be something like a startup or some cool product that you sold or something that everyone in your grade was using that you can point to and say, ‘Yeah, I created that.’

“I think the traditional, ‘Are you good at school where we quantify education intelligence that kind of helps get you into college?’  I think that’s a little bit outdated. I’ll be honest.”

Charlotte Schell is co-founder and CEO of Wreno, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based platform that aids single-family and multifamily owners and property managers.

“We support third-party vendors focused on anything from regular maintenance to large renovation capex projects for institutional owners and operators,” said Schell. “Our product streamlines the process from vendor onboarding to procurement.”

Founded at the end of 2021 and operating since mid-2022, Wreno raised a $5 million seed round and now totals $6 million in funding.

Wreno claims to be the first to digitize many categories in proptech, including trade-license verification authentication, allowing property owners/operators to customize their compliance, onboarding, procurement and bidding requirements; collecting granular data on vendors instead of just approximate categories; and having the largest database of some 400,000 vendors across the nation.

As for challenges facing women proptech entrepreneurs such as herself in building a startup, Schell is undaunted.

“I try not to focus too much on that day to day,” she said. “As a startup, the reality is there’s so many obstacles already. There’s an endless amount of challenges that we’re tackling, and, for most of them, gender is not the problem. There are situations where gender does play a role in the journey, but I try to think more positively.”

Schell also sees the important advantages women bring to entrepreneurialism.

“There are a lot of other things that are within my control to help us move forward and turn things around,” she said. “You may force me to be a little bit more creative and a little bit more strategic. Also, there are advantages and opportunities that come up because I’m a woman, just from a recruiting and culture-building perspective. I think just being a woman sometimes makes people, especially other women talent, more comfortable joining you.”

Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com. 

Paramount did not disclose the length of the lease or the asking rent, but the average asking rent in Midtown was $82.89 per square foot in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a recent CBRE report.

“This new lease builds on the momentum of recent leasing activity along Avenue of the Americas, and in our portfolio specifically,” Peter Brindley, executive vice president at the Paramount Group, said in a statement.

Paramount did not disclose the names of any brokers in the deal. Citizens Bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other tenants in the building between West 52nd and West 53rd streets include Nexstar Media Group, which subleased 68,114 square feet from tax advisory firm CohnReznick in February.

In January, law firm Smith Gambrell Russell expanded and moved floors within the building to 41,000 square feet, having moved in a decade prior.

In September 2022, corporate law firm O’Melveny & Myers downsized by 8,000 square feet in a relocation to 1301 Avenue of the Americas after signing for 142,000 square feet in the 1.7 million-square-foot office tower.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.

The 1917-built, 355,000-square-foot tower co-owned by the Chetrit Group and Read Property Group saw its net cash flow fall 15 percent below issuance levels in 2022, pushing the debt service coverage ratio to below break even at 1.02 times, according to Morningstar. 

Sarah Helwig, vice president at Morningstar, said the borrowers have requested a loan modification from its special servicer, CWCapital Asset Management. The 21-story building’s revenue struggles are largely driven by a steep drop in leasing occupancy, which was 67 percent as of September 2023 compared to 75 percent in December 2022 and 99 percent at the time the loan was originated. 

“This property has many small tenants, and as their leases have been coming up they’ve been leaving, and there is more rollover in the coming year,” Helwig said. “There is less demand overall for older New York Class B buildings and we’ve seen that more and more, especially as the pandemic has ended and companies leave those spaces by either reducing their footprint or trading up to higher-quality spaces.”

The biggest tenant loss at 65 Broadway involved Great American Insurance, which leased about 6 percent of the building before departing in May 2020, according to Helwig. Nonprofit New York Cares also departed in June 2023, relocating its headquarters to nearby 39 Broadway after accounting for 5 percent of the property.

Helwig noted that most of the existing tenants take up small spaces in the building, with none accounting for more than 5 percent. The biggest tenant is workforce development services company Arbor E&T, which has a lease that runs until 2929. 

Chetrit and Read assumed ownership of 65 Broadway in 2015 before spending $16.7 million to renovate the lobby and upgrade office spaces, Commercial Observer previously reported. The building was previously the headquarters for American Express until 1975 and later Standard & Poor’s (now called S&P Global Ratings). 

Officials at Chetrit and Read did not immediately return requests for comment.

Andrew Coen can be reached at acoen@commercialobserver.com 

After a decade at the bank, and following senior roles in commercial real estate and asset-backed finance, McShane had ascended the throne and achieved what no other woman at Wells Fargo ever had. 

“It somehow took that necklace to jolt me,” McShane said. “The truth is, you often don’t realize when you’re a role model and you don’t realize the significance of your position until you meet and talk to young people who tell you that. Even then it’s still hard to believe. But then you take a minute and realize, ‘I have a responsibility in this seat.’ ” 

Like several other women whose careers are on an upward trajectory, McShane had been pedal to the metal and hadn’t taken the time to properly appreciate her success, or the weight of her promotion. “Like anyone else, I have ambition in my career and I’m always looking to reach the next level,” she said. “So, for me, it was just the next step. Then it struck me that it really meant something for other women, too.” 

McShane has had a career in banking that’s spanned three decades.

“It was unthinkable 30 years ago that a woman would be running real estate at a bank like this,” she said. “The fact that it’s a reality today is terrific — but there’s always more progress to be made.” 

Smash! 

The term “glass ceiling” was coined by Marilyn Loden in 1978. Although the commercial real estate industry has undoubtedly come a long way in terms of having its ceiling smashed since then, there are very few teams today — especially CRE finance teams — who so clearly demonstrate the representation of women in leadership positions as Wells Fargo does. 

When McShane took the reins in 2020, not one woman reported directly to her. Today, her team’s diversity has expanded from 10 percent to 50 percent. Of those professionals, 70 percent are in new positions — either new to the leadership team, or in a completely different role than they were when McShane took over. 

The diversity wasn’t intentional, but rather the result of finding the best person for the job. 

“My main goal was to create the best leadership team off the bat, and I think I’ve done that,” McShane said. “When I set out to fill a position, it’s always about getting the best talent for the job, so it’s a bonus that my team is a lot more diverse than it used to be.” 

Diverse talent wants to work where they see similarly diverse leaders ahead of them, and Wells is doing a good job of walking the walk, not just talking the talk, McShane said. 

“There is diversity throughout the ranks, but I think the more people see role models in leadership positions that look like them, the more likely they are going to want to work at a place,” she said. “We also have a very deep bench of talent with lots of experience in commercial real estate, and that in and of itself attracts talent.”

The bench 

That bench includes Rachel Jinich and Vanessa Rodriguez, both of whom McShane has elevated to leadership positions in the past few years. 

San Francisco-based Rodriguez is now in her third decade with the bank, and was promoted to lead community lending and investment within the CRE group in October 2021. Jinich has been with the bank for 17 years now, and was promoted last April to lead the bank’s specialty real estate finance (SREF) business where she oversees all SREF teams, including hospitality finance, senior housing, manufactured housing and specialty capital.

Vanessa Rodriguez. Courtesy Wells Fargo

“I’ve been at Wells for 22 years and Kara took over the role in 2020 as the first woman to run the whole shebang,” Rodriguez said. “If nothing else, that alone speaks to evolution in our industry. We’re so proud of her for that and want to support her. We want her to win.”  

Rodriguez and Jinich got their banking starts on opposite coasts — Rodriguez in San Francisco and Jinich in Boston — but both earned their stripes through loan workouts following the Global Financial Crisis.

Jinich discovered a passion for real estate while earning her master’s in international economics and finance at Brandeis University. After joining Wells’ Boston office in 2006, she was asked to be part of a credit management training program in San Francisco, and headed west in September 2008. “So, perfect timing,” she said and laughed. “I get to San Francisco, Lehman collapses, and the world is a whole different place.” 

One of her mentors, Mark Myers, who was McShane’s predecessor, left the special situations group to oversee the distressed real estate that Wells Fargo had acquired from Wachovia in the banks’ 2008 merger. “I raised my hand, and said, ‘I want in. I don’t know what your group is all about, but whatever you’re leading, it sounds interesting.’ ” 

Rodriguez, on the other hand, went to the University of California at Berkeley. She was looking for a summer internship in 2001 as the dot.com bust was underway, heavily impacting the Bay Area, when she learned about Wells’ summer training program. 

“The critical element was that I came across a really great recruiter who was diverse himself across a number of diversity dimensions and — 22 years ago now — way ahead of his time in terms of focusing on recruiting diverse talent,” Rodriguez said. “He was a tough critic, so there was a perfect combination of him challenging me to be my best, but also taking a vested interest in me to help bring me in, navigate that summer and get into a full-time role at the firm.”

They’re still close, 22 years later. 

“I seek his counsel often, and when I don’t, I’m thinking about what he would think of what I’m doing,” Rodriguez said. “At the start, he told me, ‘You’re going to need to work harder and work smarter and be better than everyone next to you, every single day you come into work.’ He was saying I had to rise to this challenge, and I really wanted to excel.”  

Rodriguez spent her first five years in San Francisco in commercial banking. From there, she moved to New York City, where she spent the next 10 years — the most formative of which were 2009 through 2012, doing loan workouts following the Wells Fargo -Wachovia merger. 

“I really grew in that time,” she said. “Within maybe a year of me going to New York, we were smack dab in the middle of everything. New York was the center of the crisis, and I was working in banking when banks were teetering. It was scary, but I placed myself right in the center of the fire, and just tried to capture that time and grow from it.” 

Those three years ended up being the most critical to her career development.

“It was a time to dig in,” Rodriguez said. “There were a lot of people around us with more experience who probably thought we were too young and couldn’t add any value, but the hustle was real — and a year in workouts is like five years when times are good.” 

It’s something that McShane can attest to. She framed it in the context of the dislocation fueled by today’s rising interest rates, which is now approaching the two-year mark. 

“Commercial real estate is cyclical, and I’ve been through lots of down cycles in my career. This is just another one,” McShane said. “The positive side is that challenges create opportunities. When things go wrong, and you need to enter into a workout situation, that creates [loan] workout opportunities for young people — and workout experience, in many ways, is a badge of honor. When things go wrong, that’s how you learn and that’s how you get better. That’s how you become a better lender, a better investor or whatever else it is that you’re doing.” 

The women for the job 

In the same vein, one piece of career advice that Jinich gives younger women in the industry today is to run toward the fire. “Go where the business is growing,” she said. “Even if you feel like you don’t check all the boxes, run towards that fire.”

It’s advice that’s served her well. After working on distressed workouts during the GFC, Jinich was asked to join Wells’ newly formed hospitality finance group in 2012 — and the call came on her first day back after maternity leave. She wasn’t a lodging specialist, and knew she’d be going from something she knew to something completely new. 

Still, “I took the gamble,” she said. 

That gamble placed her in the specialty real estate finance group and eventually into leadership roles there. In 2017, she pivoted asset classes again when data centers got hot and became another specialty-focused vertical for the bank. 

Last year, McShane “took a chance” on her, Jinich said, when Jinich’s now-predecessor of 35 years was retiring. “Do you think you’re ready?” McShane asked, and Jinich ran toward that fire.  

Jinich said that McShane was taking a chance on her as the next leader, “and here I am,” Jinich said. 

For Rodriguez, her promotion came at a time where her personal life was busier than ever. After getting engaged in 2016, she had moved back to San Francisco from New York, where she’d pivoted from loan workouts to new originations. There, she ran the regional market for commercial real estate on balance sheet. Up until then, her career until then had been focused on market-rate assets, but the opportunity to lead community lending and investment was about to come calling.

All the while, male mentors and male sponsors had been vitally important in Rodriguez’s career.  “Frankly, they’ve helped say my name in rooms that I wasn’t in, taken my call, or given me a call when they thought I needed a push,” she said. 

Those nudges came in handy in 2021, she said: “I was eight months pregnant with my first baby and a lot of male mentors said, ‘OK, you’re ready to go and have this baby, but this is when you need to lean in. It might feel like a stretch to apply for this job right now, when you’re on the precipice of this new thing personally, but you‘ve got to do it.’ ” 

Rodriguez connected with McShane and had a “very open and authentic” conversation about what McShane needed in the role and where Rodriguez was in her  life. 

“I felt the full support of her saying, ‘There’s not just one way to do this, and I have full faith that you will make this happen if you’re chosen for the role, so don’t let the new baby be the reason not to do it,’ ” Rodriguez said. 

She now has two young children, and women often approach her to ask how she does it. “It is hard,” Rodriguez said. “But, with the right support from family, friends, the right leadership around you, and a great team under you, you can push through.”

Still, she doesn’t sugarcoat it. 

“My life is a Rubik’s Cube,” Rodriguez said and laughed. “Every day I move a piece here, so I move another piece there, but you just keep going. You wake up every day, and try to be a better mom and a better leader the next day than you were the day before. To the moms out there who are saying, ‘How do you do it?’ I just say, ‘Keep going.’ ”

Who runs the world? Girls.

As the commercial real estate industry continues to evolve, an overall leveling of the playing field is palpable. Yet, for many of the early years in McShane’s career, she was the only woman in the room most of the time and didn’t see people who looked like her in leadership roles.

She got her start at Sanford Bernstein, which was then acquired by AllianceCapital to form AllianceBernstein. From there, she went to Morgan Stanley before joining Wells Fargo. “Each place was different,” she said. “At Morgan Stanley, there were not a lot of female managing directors [MD] when I was there. I made MD while I was there, and the ones that were there, I looked up to as role models.” 

Over the years, as her career advanced, she found mentors and sponsors, many of whom were men. 

“I think women need to hear that your mentor or sponsor doesn’t have to be the same gender,” McShane said. “I’ve had bosses and colleagues and peers who have been very meaningful in terms of my counsel, and they’ve been men and women.” 

Over the years, while she’s seen women be promoted to leadership roles in CRE, “they’re few and far between in terms of running businesses or being in executive roles,” McShane said. “There’s a lot more work to do there.” 

Since Jinich joined the industry 17 years ago it’s also changed a huge amount, she said. 

Rachel Jinich. Courtesy Wells Fargo

“When I first started, at the bottom of the food chain, there was only a handful of women in a group of largely white men,” she said. “I look around now and my team is really diverse across the board. Part of that is Kara’s leadership. What you put out, you receive back, and Kara puts her whole self out there and is very open and honest — not just with the team, but with clients. I think that really resonates with people, and they then feel that it’s a safe place for them to do the same.” 

When Jinich was promoted to her current role last year she was in Charlotte, N.C., meeting with part of her new team. In a room of a dozen people, all but two were women. “I’d never been in a room of real estate professionals where there was that dynamic and it wasn’t some women’s panel,” she said. “Some of  the younger women came up to me afterwards and said ‘We’re so happy to see you in the role. We’re so excited.’ It was interesting because I knew exactly what they felt because it was the same excitement that I felt when Kara got her position. Representation matters, because when you see it in practice you feel like that’s achievable.”

Strong roots

Rodriguez is Puerto Rican, while Jinich is a first-generation American whose mom immigrated from Iran in the 1970s. 

“I often think about her life and the sacrifices that she made to move to this country without any family — just in the hope of something better,” Jinich said. “To be leading a business and have the opportunity that I have to do what I’m doing today means a lot to me, because it’s something that my mom and my grandmother, sitting in this southern town in Iran, would never have dreamed I would have accomplished.” 

Rodriguez’s grandmother passed away at age 100 two years ago. She arrived in the mainland U.S. from Puerto Rico in the 1950s, moving her sisters and mother with her. The women sewed in the Garment District for 12 to 15 hours per day, with 18 people sleeping in a two-bedroom railroad apartment by night. 

“The work ethic and the hustle and the grit that she evidenced in my life is so integral to how I am today,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez’s mother had five children and earned a master’s degree as well as worked as a bilingual teacher in the New York City public schools before becoming the full-time caregiver to her children. Rodriguez’s older sister worked on Wall Street in the 1980s. “A Puerto Rican-Italian woman was probably nonexistent on Wall Street at the time,” she said. “I have brought the influence of all these women with me into this career, and that’s all been supplemented by peers and mentors like Kara.” 

Jinich said what she appreciates about Wells’ platform today is there’s not room for only one woman: “The culture that I see spreading is women supporting other women, and the men being supportive as well. To me, it’s really heartening, because you can see the change and you can feel it,” she said.

Today’s wins

As the industry continues to navigate 2024’s uncertain market, the women of Wells Fargo have plenty to celebrate. 

“One of the hallmarks of Wells Fargo commercial real estate is that we are through-cycle lenders,” Jinich said. “Having been through a few cycles with Wells Fargo, it’s during these times of dislocation and uncertainty that we really show what we’re made of, because of the way that we continue to show up for our clients.”

During COVID, being in the lodging group, Jinich’s team worked on loan restructures, responding quickly to clients. Now that lodging has recovered, those clients remember that period and the borrower-lender relationship that developed through it, she said. 

“I think it’s the same in this environment in that we continue to support our clients, providing solutions, trying to be thoughtful,” she said. “Now that the capital markets have come back and are much more constructive, we’re providing a full suite of solutions on balance sheet, off balance sheet. So, despite the rate environment being higher, we’re still getting a fair amount done.” 

Case in point: the financing it provided to KSL Capital Partners, when it took Hersha Hospitality Trust private in November. In January, the bank also announced a $775 million M&A deal for Brookfield’s acquisition of Cyxtera and seven data centers. 

For Rodriguez, community banking is a little more of a “bright spot” compared to other areas in the market, but also not immune to some of the industry’s challenges. “We’ve been heavily supported by the firm in terms of continuing critical work in affordable housing,” Rodriguez said. “I always tell my team, ‘You’re lucky to be in this space,’ because we’re still able to do really great work that has great impact.” 

In October her team closed a $360 million financing for an 880-unit project in Willets Point, Queens, the largest affordable housing project in New York City in four decades.  

Elsewhere, McShane spies green shoots in an otherwise barren transaction landscape. 

“We’re already seeing a real pickup in capital markets activities,” McShane said. “CMBS spreads have tightened, and volume has picked up a lot in the first quarter. If and when rates decrease, that should spur a lot more activity, I hope. Now, do I know what the overall transaction volume number is going to be this year? Absolutely not. Do I think it’s going to be more than last year? Yes. Do I think it’s going to be 2021 levels? No. But I do think that we will see more activity and, like everyone, I’m anxiously awaiting it.”

As for any advice for a woman reading this article and contemplating a career in CRE finance? 

“Go for it,” McShane said. “Work hard. Stay humble, but do it with confidence and don’t be afraid of failure. I’ve had a great career, and I love how the industry is evolving and continues to evolve. We just need to attract more young women into this space, and I think we’re doing that.”

Bob Knakal is out at JLL (JLL). Darcy Stacom is gone from CBRE (CBRE), and is starting her own firm.

Does a commercial real estate broker’s name carry as much weight as it did in the heydays of Edward S. Gordon, the late founder of commercial real estate brokerage the Edward S. Gordon Company (which he sold to Insignia Financial Group)? Or Peter Hauspurg, the late co-founder of the now-defunct investment sales shop Eastern Consolidated? Or Robert Futterman, founder of Robert K. Futterman & Associates, a retail leasing, investment sales and consulting firm (which Futterman sold to Newmark and has ever since had an off-again/on-again relationship)? Or Jeff Winick, who established and led the retail leasing brokerage Winick Realty Group (in which he was forced to sell his stake)? Or the late Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of the retail division at Douglas Elliman and a master of retail marketing with her slogan “You Need Faith,” which was plastered all over New York City?

Part of the reason that JLL ended its relationship with Knakal in February was because Knakal had too much of a public profile. A source previously told Commercial Observer that JLL has been taking an investment banking approach, touting the importance of team over individual brokers. After Knakal appeared in an early February New York Times profile that only mentioned JLL once — and far down in the story at that — he was subsequently shown the door.

The turnover also comes amid perhaps the toughest real estate market in living memory, with a lot fewer deals amid high interest rates and hybrid work schedules. 

Today, top commercial real estate brokers generally don’t rely on just their names to get and keep business.

“If you look at the top brokers in the city, they don’t have their own shop,” said Eric Anton, a 27-year broker and director of the global capital group at Marcus & Millichap (MMI). “If you look at the big four or five or six companies, that’s where all the players are. And I think it’s because they leverage all the resources of the national firms.”

Some of the the top-notch brokers that have spent decades at big firms include Stacom, who recently left CBRE after 22 years; partners Doug Harmon and Adam Spies, now at Newmark and previously at Cushman & Wakefield (CWK) and before that Eastdil Secured; and Mary Ann Tighe, who has been CEO of CBRE’s New York tri-state region since 2002 after leaving a small shop.

Big individual names often correlate with big accolades.

Stacom, Harmon, Spies and Tighe have for years all graced the pages of Commercial Observer’s annual Power 100 list of the top commercial real estate professionals. 

Recipients of the coveted Real Estate Board of New York awards include a lot of the big-name brokers, with Tighe a nine-time winner of the “Deal of the Year” award for ingenious brokerage, a record number of wins since the award was created in 1944; and Stacom, who received the “Most Ingenious Deal” award five times.

The power of me

Some brokers can bank on their individual star power as they jump firms.

Investment sales broker Adelaide Polsinelli, a vice chairman at Compass, said she retained clients when she migrated from Marcus & Millichap to Eastern Consolidated to Compass.

“They don’t care which firm I’m with,” Polsinelli said. “They just want to work with me.”

Residential broker Ryan Serhant of Serhant built a successful business at Nest Seekers International as a star on the TV show “Million Dollar Listing New York.” It was his name, not Nest Seekers’, that allowed him to establish his eponymous firm; create a branding course, Sell It Like Serhant; and sell books such as “Brand It Like Serhant” and “Sell It Like Serhant.”

Brands — even well-established ones like Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse — come and go, Serhant said. But individuals prevail.

Knakal, the head of JLL’s New York private capital group, was abruptly terminated in February after six years at the global real estate services company — and a few years before the end of his contract. 

It’s not clear what the big-name broker will do next, but Knakal has had a knack for retaining clients as he’s moved from Massey Knakal Realty Services, the firm he co-founded with Paul Massey (and eventually sold to Cushman & Wakefield), to Cushman & Wakefield, and then to JLL. And the public separation with JLL did not dampen his brand: Knakal was fielding offers almost immediately.

Andrew Davidoff, CEO of The Emmes Group of Companies, a privately owned real estate investor-operator, said his company is “very loyal” to Knakal, working with him on approximately 20 deals since the broker’s days at Massey Knakal. Davidoff said he’s “agnostic” about where Knakal works. 

Similarly, Robert Lobel, president of Bell Rock Development Group, an acquisitions, development and advisory company, said it doesn’t matter to him “whether Bob is affiliated with a large firm or not.” In fact, Lobel said, Knakal doesn’t need to have a JLL or a C&W in front of his name because Bob is a “brand unto himself.”

Lobel, who has been transacting with Knakal since 1986, compared working with the broker to shopping for a Chanel product: “You don’t need to go to the Chanel store on Fifth Avenue to buy Chanel. You’ll be very happy to buy it at Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s or wherever they sell in other places.”