Her Story
About Jackie
I'm a Senior Director and mortgage banker with Berkadia, a full-service commercial real estate firm. I've been in the industry since 2010, working my way up from an underwriting analyst at HFF through various roles including senior analyst, associate, and director. I focus on the living sector, covering everything from conventional multifamily to affordable to seniors to student housing. Based in Boston, I cover New England-based clients but follow them nationally, helping with their financing needs whether that's ground-up construction loans, acquisition loans, or bridge value-add type loans. We're a direct licensed lender for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and HUD, and I work with a variety of different lenders including banks, life companies, the agencies, and debt funds. I'm very relationship-oriented and never focused on a single transaction - it's always about the broader relationship and doing what's best for our clients. I've been fortunate to develop clients that are more like friends now, and I've become a go-to person for their financing needs. My goal is to continue building relationships and growing the presence in Boston for Berkadia while developing the younger folks at our firm.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Jackie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say that my clients' happiness and success is everything to me, so I'm very relationship-oriented. I'm never focused on a single transaction - it's always about the broader relationship and doing what's best for our clients. That could mean partnering with somebody who may have an expertise in a geographic area that they're focused in, or leveraging different tools that we have at our platform to make sure that they're getting the best service. I would say, overall, I'm just very relationship-focused, and I've been fortunate to develop clients that are more like friends now that I've become a go-to person for.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I think one of the best pieces of advice that I ever heard is that it takes years to build a really good reputation, but it can take 30 seconds to ruin it. So make sure that you are constantly detail-oriented, you're taking that extra couple minutes to check your work, make sure there's no mistakes, things like that. In what we do, dealing with finances and all of that, that's critically important, and it can be really meaningful in deals. These are large developments that we're working on, so taking that extra minute, making sure that everything is correct, and double-checking your work is probably the best advice that I got.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My largest piece of advice that I always give to young folks coming in is to not just focus on developing client relationships or relationships with your boss or senior folks, but also really developing your peer network. When you start as an analyst, there's going to be a plethora of people that are willing to have coffee with you and meet with you that are on the younger side, but give it 10 years, and those folks could be in decision-making roles at firms. Real estate's one of those industries where sometimes folks will be in a brokerage role and decide that they want to start their own firm and start investing on their own. A couple of my clients are actually former colleagues of mine - they now have their own firms, and they'll call me to help with their financing. It makes it a lot of fun to do business with friends, so I would say focusing in on that cohort of folks in the industry that are also your age and are going to be moving up the ranks with you is really important too.
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