Mary Fialko: “Just focus on the actual work.”
What you probably already know: Commercial real estate is known as a male-dominated industry, and things really haven’t changed much in the last 15 years. Women hold just under 37% of all commercial real estate jobs and only 9% of C-suite roles, according to the Commercial Real Estate Women’s Network (CREW). They also earn 10.2% less than men. When it comes to bonuses, women earn a staggering 56% less. Commercial real estate brokers are typically very highly paid, with salaries averaging between $187,000 and $349,000, so shutting women out of these roles continues to exacerbate the general wage gap in the U.S.
Why is the gender gap so pronounced? “The industry is not only very male-dominated,” says Mary Fialko, director of real estate development at Skanska in Seattle, “it’s also very family dominated.” That means many people in the industry often inherit their titles and opportunities, which can result in less diversity in leadership roles at major firms. The experience for women is much like the stories from the tech industry, where they feel isolated and lonely at work. Fialko says when she started at her first job, she was hyper aware that not only was she the only woman in the room, she was also often the youngest. “I was very focused on fitting in, you know, speaking the right language and trying to mold myself into what I saw as the developer prototype,” she says.
What it means: What Fialko realized, though, is that her background as an architect — a role that has a much higher percentage of women — set her apart. She started leveraging her differences, whether that was being a woman or an architect, and over time, she made a name for herself as someone who thought differently about design. “I started feeling more like I was contributing and adding value, and less about being the only woman in the room,” she says.
What happens now? That’s what Fialko encourages young women to focus on when she’s mentoring them: Take advantage of your differences because they can set you apart and become strengths in a room where everyone else’s ideas are the same. While the statistics remain stubbornly static when it comes to diversity in the industry, Fialko remains optimistic about the future. “When I talk to people about (diversity) now they’re more open minded, and I think the conversation is changing,” she says. People are realizing that diverse teams create better buildings. “If we just focus on the actual work,” she says, “that will create a lot more opportunity for different people to be leaders.”
