Melville, NY The Commercial and Industrial Brokers Society of Long Island, one of the region’s largest real estate advocacy organizations, is announcing the creation of a new committee focused on promoting and empowering women in the commercial real estate industry. The committee is co-chaired by Amanda Gorozdi of Avision Young, Melissa Naeder of Cushman Wakefield and Marisa Karmitz of Cushman Wakefield.
“There is a long way to go to reach gender parity in the commercial real estate industry,” said committee co-chair and CIBS executive board member Gorozdi. “For women to succeed, we need mentors and networks to advance.”
“This is long overdue,” said CIBS president Dan Wiener. “We are excited to support the new initiative and committed to bringing greater diversity and equity to the commercial real estate industry.”
The CIBS board has voted to create this new committee to address long-standing issues of equity in the industry. In establishing the committee, the board cited a benchmark study released by the Commercial Real Estate Women’s (CREW) Network in 2020, which found that women continue to account for only 36.7% of the positions in commercial real estate. Though the study did find an increase in women aspiring to C-Suite positions and occupying more brokerage positions than ever before, women still continue to earn less and are not as likely to reach top positions in their companies.
“We want to be able to open doors and empower women,” said Naeder, committee co-chair and CIBS executive board member. “We are currently developing programs and events like business coaching and golf lessons that are designed to bring women together, build relationships and create support networks.”
“We are encouraged by the tremendous amount of enthusiasm we have seen and are hoping to grow the committee quickly,” said committee co-chair Karmitz, a senior director at Cushman Wakefield.
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