To say CBRE retail broker Kate Camenzuli worked her way up in the commercial real estate industry would be an understatement.
Her ascent has actually been an award-winning effort. It started early on, when she paid her dues working as an intern on the land appraisal team in the brokerage giant's Toronto office. From there, she got into retail and worked at a real estate investment fund before serving as a development leasing manager at Ivanhoé Cambridge, the real estate arm of a large Canadian pension fund.
"I’d never done retail development leasing before," Camenzuli said in a statement. "I thought it was great that I got to be a part of choosing everything from the merchandising mix, down to the tiles on the wall."
Her experience paid off, and in 2017 she returned to Dallas-based CBRE, where she had interned and worked part time for seven years, as a full-fledged broker on the Toronto office's retail brokerage team. In her job as a vice president, Camenzuli now works with retailers on their rollouts across North America.
In May, CBRE recognized her passion for the business and for helping others when it named her the winner of its 2022 Krista Haverly Spirit Award, named for a West Coast CBRE retail broker who died in 2010.
Camenzuli gives back by working with several industry organizations on their mentorship programs designed to help young people trying to break into the business, CBRE said. Many of the people she mentors come from at-risk backgrounds.
“I’ve been able to meet and learn from so many amazing people across the Americas and globally at CBRE," Camenzuli said. "We are stronger when we work as a team and I want to be sure to continue to cultivate this environment.”