As an award-winning and well-known thought leader in the real estate recruitment space, Madison Berkeley has always done things differently. Their team expertise comes from years of real estate recruitment experience. However, what sets them apart is their genuine interest in building relationships and supporting other organisations that are also on a journey to change the face of real estate. Over the last few years, Madison Berkeley has partnered with Black Women in Real Estate on the I Am Woman campaign as well as Ladies in Real Estate on a recent award-nominated campaign, Empower Equity and they continue to raise those issues in our industry, which are holding back change. Madison Berkeley Co-founders Clare Coe and Nina Zeilerbauer continue to build their networks to benefit their clients and their candidates, as well as to learn where the sticking points are in our industry. Each month, Nina Zeilerbauer and Clare Coe will bring you an in-depth interview with an industry figure. These interviews are intended to provide a thought-provoking read and recognition of those building our industry.
Pioneering Change in Real Estate
Back in 2023, Madison Berkeley partnered with Adina David, the Founder of Ladies in Real Estate, for the award-nominated Empower Equity reverse mentoring campaign. This brought junior and senior women in the Real Estate sector together with junior women mentoring the senior women. The women who took part largely came from the brilliant organisation which Adina is at the helm of, ‘Ladies in Real Estate (LiRE)’. In this piece, we catch up with Adina to find out how she is growing LiRE and also her view on women in real estate in 2025.
LiRE Champions: Tailored Mentorship for Meaningful Impact
In June 2024, we proudly launched the LiRE Champions mentorship programme, designed to guide women who are navigating their real estate careers. We know that mentorship is most effective for us when it aligns with specific career aspirations. With LiRE Champions, we’ve made sure to pair mentees with mentors whose expertise mirrors their ambitions. This ensures that both parties benefit, and it provides genuine growth. Whilst our mentees are both women and men (mainly women, though it has to be said), it is senior women who are exclusively mentors. This deliberate approach offers junior professionals a unique perspective on the challenges and triumphs women encounter in their career progression. Personally, having had mostly male mentors, I know that once I started engaging with senior women it unlocked different conversations. I believe that both genders must experience this female mentorship to understand and breed a more inclusive industry culture.
LiRE Investment Club: Demystifying Real Estate Investment
In my day job, I am an investment manager, so I really wanted to help demystify investment management for other women as I think that is the way in which more of us can create wealth via real estate. So late last year, we also established the LiRE Investment Club. Our monthly evening meetings are designed as informal roundtables where members can openly discuss case studies and share their insights. What we try to do is to illustrate the foundational steps of launching a real estate business and to show it is not an insurmountable challenge. Statistics prove that while women constitute approximately 35-40% of the global commercial real estate workforce, their representation plummets to about 9% in C-suite positions. The real kicker is that once you get to female-founded or co-founded firms, women make up a mere 2% of capital in our sector. This major imbalance proves the necessity for proactive measures to elevate women in leadership roles within Real Estate. What I have noticed is that traditionally, new businesses emerge from senior men nearing retirement, who then often recruit male colleagues for new ventures. Conversely, women at similar career junctures tend to transition into consultancy roles rather than spearheading new businesses. This trend needs reimagining in my opinion. Through the LiRE Investment Club, we are cultivating a pipeline of emerging female managers and equipping them with the knowledge and confidence to lead and innovate.
Meet The CEO Series: Bridging the Gap Between Aspiration and Achievement
To further our commitment to accessibility and mentorship, we’re introducing the ‘Meet The CEO’ series. These again are intimate roundtable breakfasts in London that will provide attendees with direct access to seasoned executives. Meet The CEO will provide candid conversations and I believe, invaluable networking opportunities. In April we will have Ciaran Bird from CBRE joining us which is great as he is a big champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and will set the tone for an insightful and inspiring series of events.
Navigating the DEI Landscape in Real Estate
The Real Estate landscape for women has taken a hit. We are seeing a concerning rollback of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives within our sector. The past years have been challenging, with economic shifts leading to restructurings and redundancies, and those have disproportionately affected women. However, within these challenges, I believe there lies an opportunity for women to launch their ventures and redefine industry norms. At LiRE, we don’t label ourselves strictly as a DEI organisation. We’re dedicated to facilitating connections, educating women in Real Estate business and empowering them to upskill through networking. The recent pushback against DEI shows the urgency to go harder with our efforts, ensuring that women not only occupy seats at the table but also lead discussions and drive decisions. We need to ask ourselves why our representation in leadership matters. Beyond the obvious equity value, it’s about using diversity to drive innovation and profitability. At LiRE, we’ve witnessed firsthand how women secure jobs, win clients, and forge impactful mentor-mentee relationships within our network.
The future of LiRE
Since our work on Empower Equity, we’ve doubled in size, reaching over 4,300 women via our monthly newsletter, and we’ve grown in six global cities outside of London (Sydney, Paris, Dublin, New York, Vancouver, Amsterdam, and Melbourne). As LiRE continues to grow, we’re engaging senior leaders to consider corporate memberships, emphasising the importance of investing in their teams’ development. We will continue to advocate for the importance of community in the pursuit of equity in our sector. As we expand globally, our commitment remains the same: to empower, educate, and elevate women in the industry via personal relationships they form in the LiRE community.
