Marsha Womack

I attribute my success to having a network, having women that I can go to and lean on to get information about things that I wouldn't be able to get on my own. That network didn't come overnight - I was intentional about making sure that I am part of it. You get what you give, so I make sure that I'm also giving things out and supporting people where I can.

Really don't tell yourself no. Lean in and try different things, especially in banking. There's so many different facets of the financial services industry that you can go into, and every facet builds upon each other and can help each other out. Don't get complacent or stuck feeling like you've reached the pinnacle, because we're all learning and we all should be trying to become better every single year than what we did the year before. Keep moving and keep being curious. I told students at ICSC that I was not afraid to catch on to someone's coattail and say, 'I want to learn from you, do what you're doing, and teach me.'

When you think about commercial real estate as a whole, women are still in the minority when it comes to different professions and different roles in CRE. There's still pay parity issues - there's still some discrepancy in pay when it comes to women in CRE as opposed to men. Crew Network has done a couple of white papers and benchmark studies about pay parity, and it's interesting that we're still in this space. It's hard for women to break in and be in certain rooms. That's why Crew Network is important - to help put women in spaces that they probably wouldn't naturally be able to get into. Commercial real estate has about 25 different professions in the CRE industry, from brokers to agents, to title work, accountants, attorneys, all that, but it's still a predominantly white male industry, and that's something that we're working on for women and minorities alike.

Your yes is your yes, and your no is your no. I try to tell people, a quick no is better than a slow maybe, so respond back to folks. We're all human, there are times we're going to miss something or forget something, but lean into that and say I messed up, I missed that, sorry, let me fix that. Ownership and not making excuses around it, because people can smell excuses a mile away. I told my team, I said, I won't insult you if you don't insult me. Just tell me what you did, and then we'll move on from it. You can't move on from it if you don't own up to it.