Wendy Mann is CEO of an association spanning 18 countries that advocates for women in real estate. Karen Whitt is the group's president and oversees the property management business of a global property brokerage. Besides their leadership roles in commercial real estate, they have something else in common: they were helped by mentors.

Mann, who has led the Commercial Real Estate Women Network since 2017, said role models important in her ascension were Diane Butler, a principal of property firm Butler Advisers in Dallas, and Susan Sarfati, commissioner of the Washington, D.C., Commission on Women.

Butler "has been very influential and a real touchstone for me, throughout my term at CREW Network," Mann said in an interview this month at the Mipim conference in Cannes, France. "Before that, there was a CEO [Sarfati] who said to me, 'Wendy, face-to-face is best.' And I said, 'Oh, I don't know if you need that.' And now, 20 years later, I recognize how smart and how much wisdom that woman had to sort of push that, because that's what we're all about in crew network is really building those relationships and having those personal interactions."

For Whitt, the 2024 CREW Network president and president of Colliers' real estate management services business in the United States, her first boss, Barbara Kocmur of Janez Properties in San Diego, was important in Whitt's professional development, she said.

"She really helped me realize there was a career at the time," said Whitt, who is now based in Washington, D.C. "I was planning to go back to school for my master's in social work. So she's someone that really started me on the path."

After that, Colliers CEO Gil Borok and previous CEO Dylan Taylor "really helped push me to where I need to go," Whitt said. Taylor is now chairman and CEO of Voyager Space Holdings.

As for Mann, neither running a membership organization or association nor working with commercial real estate professionals was on her career agenda when she graduated with a journalism degree from St. Bonaventure University in New York in the mid-1980s and headed to Washington.

"Truth be told, I always wanted to be Barbara Walters since I was a kid," Mann said in a follow-up email this week. "Unfortunately, it is very challenging to break into broadcast in a major market. I decided to take a job to get started and figured I would reassess later — student loan debt required me to get a job and start paying it back."

Mann, who lives in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, landed her first job at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and that changed her career trajectory.

"I discovered my love of the business world while working there. My priority every day was to read the Wall Street Journal," she said. "It became an obsession to connect dots about companies, opportunities and whatever was happening in business."

Her interest in commercial real estate emerged in part because of her husband, who has worked in the industry for more than 20 years.

"He was the first person to open the world of commercial real estate to me," she said. "We often discussed it evenings and weekends as we saw different developments around the city or big impacts of real estate transactions."

In 2013, she started a senior-level position at NAIOP, the commercial real estate development association, and "really developed into a deeper understanding of the industry and the business of development, ownership and investment," Mann said. "I have to admit I was quite taken with the deeper knowledge and I even took some online courses for development, marketing and leasing. It was very helpful to educate myself — and I felt I could be more effective if I had working knowledge of the business," she said.

Her commitment to the industry and skills in executive leadership in associations led her to her current position with CREW Network, Mann said.

In addition to leading CREW, Mann teaches leadership skills to business leaders.

"Once I spent a year in my job at CREW Network, I realized how much more effective my role could be with leveraging the tenets of executive leadership coaching," Mann said. "In every aspect of my work, I have the opportunity to coach women through leadership challenges, opportunities and development. It was a way to add to my skill set to benefit the organization, our leaders and members. I have personally worked with coaches throughout my career and continue to do so."