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This year’s Commercial Caffeinated Networking Breakfast was perhaps the touchstone event for commercial attendees. Accompanying the eggs, coffee, and networking were speakers bringing thought-provoking looks at the notions of “conscious capitalism,” industry gender balance, and diversity. Sponsored in part by RE/MAX Commercial, the breakfast featured industry thought leaders Goldie B. Wolfe Miller of The Goldie Initiative and Kevin Maggiacomo of SVN International.
“We’re going to have a discussion about purpose and profit and how they go hand-in-hand,” said SVN CEO and President Kevin Maggiacomo.
He laid out the case for aggressively pursuing diversity in commercial real estate workplaces: “Any business which fails to harness the creativity of women and minorities is at a huge disadvantage,” Maggiacomo argued. “Companies that are committed to this stuff are simply more successful.”
Recalling his own family history of immigration from Italy, Maggiacomo described his great grandmother’s microloan finance service, established shortly after she arrived to assist fellow immigrants, as an example of how “purpose and profit go hand in hand”.
Maggiacomo went on to describe a change in business patterns. What used to be a cycle of “Gain, then grow, then do good,” he argued, should change to “Do good, grow, then gain.”
Chicago commercial real estate business legend Goldie B. Wolfe Miller, founder of The Goldie B. Wolfe Miller Women Leaders in Real Estate Initiative (the Goldie Initiative) at Chicago’s Roosevelt University, took the stage and issued a ringing endorsement of diversity as a goal.
“I don’t agree with men often, but everything Kevin said was right,” she said.
Long a top producer, Wolfe Miller recounted winning a sales award in her earlier days. The ceremony was held at an all-male social club where she was prevented from attending by its discriminatory rules.
“I said ‘great. As long as my check doesn’t bounce, and as long as I’m recognized, I don’t care.’”
Wolfe Miller described her realization that there was a need in commercial real estate to actively support the career advancement of women. This was the impetus for founding her Goldie Initiative (www.gbwmi.org) in 2007, because, as she put it, “No matter where you are or what you’re doing, there’s a way to grow.” Wolfe Miller’s strong commitment to cultivating professional and personal growth serves as the backbone of a program designed to provide networking, education, and career advancement support for Goldie Scholars.
In summing up her 40+ year career in commercial real estate and the $3B of transactions that go with it, a theme emerged: “I’m not a female in a profession,” Wolfe Miller explained. “In my own mindset, I’m a professional individual who excels in their business and happens to be female.”