Women Brokers Top
Commercial Ranks

Women are making themselves felt in the notoriously male-dominated U.S. commercial real-estate brokerage industry. Last year, for the first time, two women were the top leasing brokers at a major commercial real-estate broker.

New York-based Tara Stacom, an executive vice president, was the top-producing broker in the world for Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the closely held commercial real-estate-services firm. Washington-based Audrey Cramer, the firm's vice chairwoman, came in second. They join an exceedingly small club of women who have managed to move to the top of the brokerage business.

That club's most prominent member is Mary Ann Tighe, a broker and chief executive of the New York region for CB Richard Ellis, a Los Angeles-based commercial real-estate company. She has done more than 50 million square feet in deals in her 20-year career.

Ms. Stacom, 46 years old, came to the business 24 years ago through her father, a longtime broker at Cushman & Wakefield. Her sister, Darcie, works in New York for CB Richard Ellis and is one of the most prominent investment-sales brokers in the business.

Ms. Cramer, 55, has been a broker for 25 years. Both women are on the company's board.

Commercial real-estate brokerage, in contrast to residential brokerage, has traditionally been a largely male, highly competitive business of swashbuckling deal makers. Women make up more than half of all U.S. residential brokers, according to the National Association of Realtors. In the far more lucrative commercial sector, they make up between 4% and 7% of leasing brokers who work on commission, according to industry estimates. Cushman says 15% of its brokers are women, while at Jones Lang LaSalle, where brokers work on salary instead of commission, 40% of the brokers are women.

In other countries, especially in postcommunist emerging markets, women can represent a much higher percentage of brokers. In Cushman & Wakefield's Moscow office, about half of the brokers are women, and in its Warsaw office, 70% are, Ms. Cramer says.

In the U.S., things are changing, however slowly. "When I first started out, people thought I was a secretary," says Ms. Stacom. These days, she often sits across the table from women with real decision-making power.

But the slights are still there, particularly involving industry events. "There are several trips a year that are industry-generated," Ms. Stacom says. "That phone has never rung; nor will it. We trade on information, and that's an opportunity I don't have. You have to work a lot harder and a lot smarter."

"I'm always delighted by how hard it sometimes is for some men to know exactly how to deal with a woman on the opposite side of a negotiation," Ms. Tighe says, noting she uses it to her advantage. "There's always that tug of war being going for the jugular and being a gentleman."

Ms. Cramer handled the largest private-sector lease ever signed in Washington, which moved her to the No. 2 spot in her firm. Ms. Stacom says a lot of the men she works with have wives that don't work, and they assumed that she would quit when she got married several years ago. "It's been said to me at this firm: 'What's wrong with your life?' " Ms. Stacom says. "A lot of guys still don't get it."

Ms. Cramer says statistics show that women tend to be higher-producing brokers on average than their male counterparts. "There are just not as many of us."

Email your comments to rjeditor@dowjones.com.