Exclusive Q&A: CBRE EVP On Landmark Projects, Attracting More Women To The Industry
CBRE EVP Laurie Lustig-Bower has been there for 28 years. She loves her company and her job and aims to find more ways to attract women to the industry. Laurie is among the all-star panelists scheduled to speak at Bisnow's Los Angeles Capital Markets Forum starting at 7:30am March 16 at The Water Garden in Santa Monica.
Bisnow recently caught up with Laurie (pictured with her husband at Alcatraz) to talk about why she chose to enter the industry, some landmark projects and what's on the horizon.
Bisnow: How did you get involved in the industry?
Laurie Lustig-Bower: I made a conscious decision that, having a business background, I wanted to get into real estate and evaluate it from an investment side as opposed to an emotional side with single-family homes. I was accustomed from business school to running a 10-year internal rate of return and it just seemed much more appealing to me to get into commercial, because I would be able to use more of my business background. I also felt the culture of commercial was a bit more corporate, which was what I was accustomed to with my first job out of school. I worked for Baxter Healthcare—I was a sales rep for them. It was a Fortune 500 company. I dressed in a business suit every day and went and visited the CEOs of hospitals. (Laurie's pictured below with her daughter and pet dog.)
Bisnow: Why do you think there are so few women in the industry?
Laurie Lustig-Bower: I think that commercial real estate was always seen as a male-dominated industry whereas residential was more seen as a female-dominated industry.
Bisnow: How has it been for you being a female in a male-dominated industry?
Laurie Lustig-Bower: I think there are times when I have noticed that society still gives deference to males over females. There are times when I’ve walked into a meeting, and if people don’t know that I’m the team leader, sometimes they just assume that one of my male team members is the lead. Even though he is younger and less experienced, their eyes will look to him to start the meeting, because they will assume he is the lead.
I think that’s just conditioning in society. They’re just not used to seeing a female in a lead role, especially in commercial real estate. So part of it is just what they’re accustomed to from the past. I think it is changing. I’ve seen it changing over almost the past three decades. I think it’s gotten a bit easier for women to get into commercial real estate.
In our company, I think we’ve made a good effort to encourage females to join the company. I was one of the founding members of the CBRE Women’s Network. We came up with innovative ideas to recruit women and then help retain them. Some of our ideas were so good that the company is now using them for both male and female recruiting.
Bisnow: What are some of your latest projects?
Laurie Lustig-Bower: The two that are the most high-profile in the last couple of years are the sale that we did in Beverly Hills for the former Robinsons-May property (9900 Wilshire Blvd). It’s an eight-acre site, and it has entitlements to build 235 condominium units and about 15k SF of retail. We sold that property in 2007 for $500M to a buyer based in London. Then, we sold it again in 2014 to Wanda, a large Chinese company based in Beijing. The property had not been built due to the recession, and so it changed hands. It was a landmark sale both times in terms of pricing. This is one of the highest valued condominium sites west of Manhattan. Both transactions were very exciting. We are working on a number of other high-profile sites in LA. We’re just in the marketing process, so I can’t say too much.
Bisnow: Tell us more about your role at CBRE.
Laurie Lustig-Bower: I run a team of nine people. We focus on land for development of apartment buildings and condominium communities as well as selling existing apartment buildings as investments. Our geographic focus is the greater LA area. Sometimes we’ll team up with another CBRE broker if the property is outside of the greater LA area. We have been very systematic in our approach with our marketing. I think we do a good job of being able to market our properties on a broad scale to both the domestic and foreign markets. I was one of the first brokers in CBRE back in 2006 to figure out how to utilize CBRE’s international platform to market my LA properties, so I’ve established a lot of relationships abroad within our other offices.
Bisnow: What do you like to do in your personal life?
Laurie Lustig-Bower: I love to spend time with my family (pictured here in New York City's Times Square). My husband and I have a 13-year-old daughter, and the three of us spend a lot of time together. We’re very close with our parents and our brothers and their families. We do see family a lot on the weekends. One of my favorite things to do is to go and visit animal shelters and play with the animals. My daughter loves to do that, too. We do it on the weekends, and we also like to do it when we’re traveling.
To hear more from Laurie and our other panelists, join us at Bisnow's Los Angeles Capital Markets Forum event March 16 at The Water Garden in Santa Monica. Sign up here!
