With International Women’s Day here, I’ve taken some time out to reflect on how far the real estate industry has come in diversifying its talent pool in recent years and how much further we have to go. Diversity and inclusion in the workplace has improved in much of the corporate world, with good examples ranging from the likes of Diageo, who’s seen 200,000 beneficiaries through its Plan W diversity initiative, to management consulting firm EY, which was the first of the Big Four to assign full-time, partner-level leadership to diversity recruiting. However, the real estate industry has lagged other sectors, although this should not remain the case for much longer with legislation around gender pay gap reporting meaning that discussion about how to attract and retain a more diverse talent pool are taking increasing priority in place in boardrooms across our sector which should be celebrated.
The real estate industry has long had a reputation of being dominated by men. But throughout my journey in the sector, I’ve seen steady progress. When I first started working in real estate most of the women I came across were carrying out roles that were very much considered peripheral to the main task of origination and asset management that was largely carried out by chartered surveyors or corporate financiers. However, owning and operating real estate (and raising funds to invest in them) is no longer just about networking lunches, lease negotiations and capex programmes. Instead to be a successful real estate fund manager you also need to be able to do the following: operate your real estate with a customer focussed hospitality-led approach; analyse operational data; manage your public profile through increasingly complicated media channels; integrate extensive ESG programmes across your business; understand technology and its role; operate an integrated compliance regime with little margin for errors and significant fines; navigate the complex regulatory environment; and fundraise from investors with growing expectations around reporting and transparency. These additional workstreams require a more diverse skillset to deliver and are naturally leading to more women entering the sector. Only the more enlightened companies have recognised the importance of such roles with senior positions, but it is happening and in my opinion those that don’t will fail to attract and retain the talent needed to stay ahead.
According to the ‘Real Estate Balance’ research by PWC, just 22% of senior leadership positions within the industry are occupied by women – and that would drop significantly if you looked just across the investment business. When we see statistics like this it can feel like closing the gender equality gap within the current generation looks almost impossible, and it was depressing looking through the executive leadership teams of the UK listed REITs and Commercial Agencies as part of my research for this piece. It is a fundamental fact that it is key for diverse candidates to see people who “look like them” sitting in mid and senior roles in their organisation – and this is where our industry needs to focus. We all recognise it is impossible to implement change like this overnight: people need to be nurtured, mentored and supported into these roles and it is essential for current leaders to champion initiatives that do this and to constantly challenge their own perceptions of what leadership looks like.
I have worked at the coalface of the UK real estate Alternatives at Moorfield for over 12 years and one of the things I have most enjoyed has been my role, and the support I have had in it, in encouraging the transformation that has been required for a traditional real estate mindset to transition towards seeing real estate as a multidimensional, operational product and service that requires a rethink. To innovate in these sectors as we have at Moorfield, managers must unlearn much of what they previously thought they knew about what makes traditional real estate successful and start looking at it instead as a customer offering through entirely fresh eyes. I’m looking forward to a future where leadership teams across our industry carry out the same exercise of looking with fresh eyes at what senior management within a real estate business should look like.