2017 Women in Professional Services: Annemarie DiCola of Trepp, LLC

Name: Annemarie DiCola

Title: CEO

Company Name: Trepp, LLC

Years in real estate: 30+

What real estate associations or organizations are you a member of? Commercial Real Estate Finance Council, Commercial Real Estate Women New York, European American Chamber of Commerce, NYU Stern Center For R.E. Finance Research, Partnership for NYC, Real Estate Roundtable, Women’s Exchange 

How have you navigated obstacles to achieve success in your career? I personally apply the same approach that we advocate at Trepp: Embrace innovation. In order to do that, you need to take the fear out of change. My approach is to view a problem from all angles and consider varying perspectives for a solution. At Trepp, I encourage my team to take the same approach and we pride ourselves on finding those innovative solutions that help our clients address their own business challenges, whether via data, analytics or technology solutions. In my experience, when you deconstruct the elements of a challenge and know all the angles, the solutions present themselves.

How do you play your strengths to your advantage in your career? As a leader, I have learned that I must focus on what I do best and surround myself with talent that “rounds out” Trepp as well as me. My key talents–communication, organization, process, management and strategic leadership–are balanced by a deep corps of people with extraordinary quantitative and technological expertise. I have learned that all the expert financial analysis in the world still needs its meaning to be translated and I have focused on my ability to message and communicate in words the import of Trepp’s output in numbers.

What trends are you seeing so far this year? At Trepp, we are seeing industry receptivity of risk retention deals in CMBS; spread tightening; the impact of regulations restricting lending by traditional capital providers, banks and insurance companies; a general expectation of slowly rising interest rates; continued work by financial institutions to comply with stress test regulations; a general assumption that reduction of Dodd-Frank regulations will not happen soon, if at all; the migration of companies to enterprise-based platforms for managing CRE debt assets; and the flight of investors from retail.

What do you do for fun? Binge-watching cable TV series; being a foodie; trying to be a better golfer.