Creating the Infrastructure for Authenticity: Key Insights from the Real Estate Pride Roundtable
Real estate and built environment professionals talk sector vision and personal visibility
Authenticity is important. But when Deryl Deese, Senior Director, Tauro Capital Advisors, brought his partner to a work party 30 years ago, he was subsequently fired for bringing a man.
Andrea Himmel, Managing Principal, Chief Investment Officer, Himmel + Meringoff Properties, noted that she has to “come out a few times a day.”
“And every time I do, it’s a different experience. This is a room where you don’t have to come out,” she said, expressing appreciation for the day’s event, the Real Estate Pride Roundtable, which was hosted by NYU Stern, Deutsche Bank in New York and the Real Estate Pride Council to bring together LGBTQ+ professionals working in real estate and the built environment.
In a field widely recognized as dominated by cisgender, straight white men, events like the roundtable provide a vital connection to people in the industry who understand the unique trials – and triumphs – of a queer career in real estate.
Across four panels, interspersed with slots for remarks and sit-down chats, participants discussed their professional and personal experiences – and insights – in the industry.
During a session titled, The Outlook for Real Estate Investment, Development and Lending, panelists shared the potential for bright spots in a commercial real estate sector still facing shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic and economic uncertainty posed by rising interest rates. Panelists agreed hospitality remains one sector poised for continued growth. And despite the unfortunate politicization of environmental, social and governance (ESG), using ESG frameworks remain critical to better understanding a company’s economic risk and opportunity associated with factors across sustainability, health, safety and governance, and it is continuing to gain momentum internationally.
“If you look across the Atlantic, the Europeans are leading this charge, full steam ahead. The hurdles we have to go through to buy an ESG asset speaks to these differences,” said Matthew Scholl, Executive Director, Head of Investment Management Americas, Union Investment Real Estate GmbH. “It matters, the built environment is a large contributor here.”
And with nearly 420 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation making their way through U.S. state legislatures since the beginning of the year, Dominic Cottone, Senior Managing Director and Co-Founder, Leadership Consulting, Ferguson Partners, noted, “Where we invest matters when we think about diversity and inclusion.”
On ESG specifically, a familiar adage re-emerged that has been seen at other ESG-focused events over the past few years. During the day’s session Reimagining Spaces and Cities, Michael Briggs, General Counsel and Senior Vice President, Mortgage Bankers Association, remarked that there is “still not a common understanding of the E, the S and the G.”
During this same session, panelists were asked the most important component to successful DEI initiatives. The consensus among panelists was that these initiatives require legitimate buy-in from leadership, and that this commitment needs to be followed up by real action. According to IWBI’s 2023 State of the Workforce Well-Being Poll, nearly three-quarters of LGBTQ employees (72%) consider commitment to DEI very important or absolutely essential, compared with about half of non-LGBTQ (51%).
The roundtable closed out with remarks from IWBI President and CEO Rachel Hodgdon, who threaded the day’s many lessons, insights and takeaways into a thoughtful and distilled recap. As part of her closing remarks, she highlighted that LGBTQ+ inclusive board diversity policies have skyrocketed in the last three years, helping lead to increased placement of LGBTQ+ board directors.While noting that progress is being made, citing that 112 of the Fortune 500 now have LGBTQ+ inclusive board diversity policies (22.4%), she also noted that just 0.7% of over 5,400 board seats in the Fortune 500 are occupied by LGBTQ+ directors – and of the Fortune 1000, it’s only 58 of 7,600, which is just 0.8%.
As part of encouraging everyone to help continue to push for progress, she concluded with just one request of all of the attendees: “Be more visible. You’d be surprised just how much that signaling matters.”
