Competition is fierce for mindshare in the CRE industry. With digital noise taking up most of a consumer's brain matter, how do companies and marketers cut through all that clutter and impart a resonating message to a target audience?

In preparation for our upcoming Woman of Influence marketing influencers, which will publish in the GlobeSt. Real Estate Forum July/August publication, we wanted to take a moment to recognize some of the women who have already made it onto our inaugural marketing influencer list this past December and have already proven that they are leaders in this space.

They include:

Karen Benoit

With Karen Benoit's presence on the executive team, Kidder Mathews has seen an increase in its customer base, positively impacting the firm's annual revenue and overall strategic plan. However, the true testament to Benoit's leadership are the awards Kidder Mathews has received: more than 50 awards for being a "best place to work" from numerous business journals. Overall, the firm has received more than 180 awards and recognitions under her marketing leadership.

In her 30-year tenure, Benoit has created the company's brand strategy and grown its marketing presence by building an industry-leading marketing team. She has increased advertising, PR, marketing campaigns and market research, client-centric events and company conferences, and directed and launched four re-brand campaigns for Kidder Mathews during the past 15 years. Benoit's most recent re-brand campaign along with the new site, kidder.com, was launched in May 2019, strategically coinciding with Kidder Mathews' 50th anniversary celebration.

Lindsay Burgee

Lindsay Burgee played a major role in all of the forward-thinking digital initiatives recently implemented by PRCP. This led to winning the MAXI innovation award for its online to offline shopping platform, as well as onsite digital media programming. Burgee created and executed groundbreaking events which generated a leasing pipelines of dozens of new tenants for PRCP centers, set marketing strategy across all of the PRCP properties, created digital marketing initiatives, oversaw creative campaigns, worked on large-scale production and marketing events for the properties, and managed the transition for many new acquisitions.

She was an integral part of executing Taste for the Space at four properties/markets. This culinary food festival and competition attracted local culinary talent and developed relationships, and was attended by more than 1,000 people in each market and an ICSC Gold MAXI winner.

Burgee is passionate about positioning people to succeed or move up within the company/industry.

Julie Chase

Julie Chase is an expert in media relations and corporate reputation management in multiple industries including real estate, retail, healthcare and consumer goods with public affairs, events and crisis communications efforts. Chase Communications is one of the go-to firms for DC developers looking to get the word out on the latest groundbreaking, acquisition or lease, according to the Washington Business Journal.

"Chase has represented a virtual Who's Who among DC developers, ranging from Hines to The JBG Cos. to the developers of The Wharf in Southwest DC. Jointly based in DC and San Francisco, its reach includes multi-city firms such as Grosvenor Americas and MacFarlane," says the Business Journal.

Chase previously founded two communications firms, Chase Communications, which was acquired by DC-based Levick in 2017, and ChasePR. She is now the managing director of Streetsense's, an experience-focused strategy, design and PR collective while she continues to operate ChasePR.

Lynette Grinter

The marketing team under Lynette Grinter's leadership crafted an effective content strategy that weaves together blogs, public relations and thought leadership, all timed around public speaking engagements across the country. This has produced qualified leads and led to greater brand awareness.

She is a member of the Truss senior management team which sets the strategic direction for the company. Before Grinter was hired, there was no marketing effort at Truss and no brand recognition. She single-handily performed all the marketing roles initially, then thoughtfully and effectively built a team of professionals as the company scaled up. Revenues have risen dramatically as a result.

During her tenure, the company has garnered several awards including a B2B winner in 50 on Fire (2017), the CRETech RETAS winner for Overall Best Real Estate Tech Site (2017), Tech-Enabled Brokerage and Listing Marketplace (2018), a Chicago Innovation Award (2018) and the Disruptor Daily Future of Real Estate Award.

Colleen Heydon

In retail, many people have succumbed to the idea that the "retail apocalypse" has begun and there are no new frontiers to be explored. Colleen Heydon, however, has turned the retail apocalypse into a retail renaissance. Working in close partnership with Centennial's mall teams, she envisioned the future and sees the transformation of traditional malls of yesterday into the walkable urban villages of tomorrow. Heydon intuitively understands how the marketing and communications discipline must adapt to provide an experience that tomorrow's shoppers will embrace.

Heydon realizes that there is a paradigm shift and embraces taking calculated risks to more meaningfully connect with Centennial's communities and exceed consumer expectations. This is evident in her work on the Hawthorn 2.0 and Fox Valley 2.0 redevelopment campaigns where Heydon collaborated closely with Centennial's development, leadership and mall teams to articulate and generate excitement about the next iteration of experiential retail.

Leeza Hoyt

As president of THO, Leeza Hoyt is responsible for the strategic leadership of the firm. In the past three years under her leadership, The Hoyt Organization continued to thrive.

Hoyt is typically one of the go-to resources for public relations advisory and consulting advice for many CRE companies/projects around the country. Known as a behind-the-scenes influencer, she has launched housing complexes in New York, shopping centers around the country and major mixed-use projects in downtown Los Angeles. Key to Hoyt's success for the past 25 years is tailoring her communications teams. These teams have won more than 100+ industry awards including the Award of Excellence for the writer in residence program which was created for the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, the PRism award for the media relations program for a national architectural firm, and a PRism award for an integrated communications program designed and implemented for a national brokerage firm.

Najla Kayyem

Najla Kayyem embraces transformation and new thinking on integration and new uses in retail. She is passionate about helping inspire and teach and mentor the next generation. And, Kayyem connects people and has a real knack for working backwards to solve any problem.

Every two weeks, she hosts training on a different subject matter–empowering her teams and ensuring the marketing and communications side has a voice and seat at the table. Kayyem promotes from within to give members the ability to move into new roles and experience new ways to affect positive change.

She has been an integral part in instituting a murals program across PRCP properties–basically an integration of art experience and shopping centers. At the forefront of the movement nationally, it has more recently begun trending across the country. Kayyem and her team are also responsible for a number of MAXI awards at ICSC including seven in 2018 and three in 2019.

Annemarie Marek

Long before sustainable construction became a CRE focus, Annemarie Marek built her reputation by contributing viewpoints published by the Dallas Business Journal about the need for sustainable schools and commercial buildings, earning a LEED AP, the first PR consultant in Texas to do so. Marek co-founded a nonprofit named Shared FUEL (Shared Focus on Urban Environmental Leadership). She received the Dallas Mayor's Environmental Excellence Award as a "sustainopreneur".

Marek has secured and served clients in the architecture, engineering and commercial construction industry including TDIndustries, Hill & Wikinson, Hall Financial Group, MYCON General Contractors, PAGE and JQ Engineering. Her average client retention is 15 years, which speaks to the results Marek delivers, including external communications programs, strategic thinking and networking skills.

Marek has taught business/global communications and PR courses as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Dallas for 16 years while leading her firm's consulting practice.

Karen Marotta

In a sea of tone-deaf media pitches, Karen Marotta strives to preserve the age-old notion that journalists and PR pros could not exist without each other. With a passion for the industry, Marotta's strategy for success is to understand the issues impacting the sector, and offer access and insight to media influencers with as much transparency as possible.

She serves as a trusted communications advisor to the C-suite at Greystone with more than 20 years of PR industry experience, and has worked to successfully raise the profile of the firm and its founder, Stephen Rosenberg.

By communicating the firm's priorities and its level of expertise in areas of commercial real estate including affordable housing, many projects have served to move the needle for Greystone. To that end, Marotta worked to develop a relationship with The Wall Street Journal to garner coverage of a marquis recapitalization project that Greystone completed in Newark, NJ.

Cherilyn Megill

Cherilyn Megill operates under a leadership model that creates camaraderie and instills a strong fellowship at all levels. Megill leads all aspects of Phillips Edison's/PECO internal and external marketing efforts and is a founding member of PECO NOW (Networking Opportunities for Women). She is also active in PECO Community Partnership and PECO University.

Always looking for ways to innovate as a leader in the industry, last year, Megill partnered with PECO's CIO to launch a new Alexa App which allows users to listen to listen to the company's Retail Intel Podcast and search for retail space across the company's nationwide portfolio. Since 2016, her team has won seven silver and four gold MAXI awards, and the advertising campaign that Megill spearheaded was named in the Communicator Awards, the Fourteener Awards and the Hermes Creative Awards. In fact, the company has received more than 40 awards during Megill's tenure.

Magdalene Marvin

Magdalene Marvin is a futuristic, big picture strategist. Her drive to develop and execute tactical efficiencies has propelled her team's increased operational capacity and productivity, resulting in marketing best practices which are adopted by JLL teams on a national scale. Furthermore, her optimistic leadership has helped to positively transform her team's culture, support retention and hire additional team members.

Marvin is also involved in JLL's internal Women's Business Network as the communications lead for Southern California. A clear desire to propel diversity and inclusion initiatives is apparent not only through the strategic communications and events she facilitates, but also in the way she conducts herself each day. The sincere effort she makes to lead and mentor at all levels has an immeasurable impact on all individuals around her. Simply put, Marvin will raise her hand and show up when it matters to her team and to her community.

Alison Scott

Alison Scott joined Cresa four years ago and serves as the liaison for more than 80 global offices. She won the 2017 Cresa Service Award given to the employee who added the most value for the company that year.

Initially, Scott found that the regional offices were not fully aligned with corporate's marketing vision. She led the initiative to formalize Cresa's approach to marketing and ensure the collateral adhered to consistent corporate standards, developed corporate brand guidelines to which each office adheres, streamlined the process for creating/issuing marketing and PR materials (including a press kit), and developed training for the marketing teams in different international locations. Scott managed a full brand refresh and new website completed in 2018. To lead this $1 million project, she collaborated with influencer groups to build consensus including Cresa's global board of directors, emerging leadership council and strategic leadership council during the 24-month period.

Melissa Swader

Since Melissa Swader joined the firm in 2015, the top-ranked SVN brokerage in Arizona has gone from $55 million in total volume sale and lease transactions to nearly $125 million in four years. Her marketing campaigns, along with PR and media programs have been a catalyst in brand awareness for the SVN ranked fifth out of 210-plus offices.

Swader is also a small business advocate. She hosts a business networking event every quarter, with 70 to 100 people at each event, totaling more than 450 small businesses within the last three years. Additionally, Swader hosts a Women Entrepreneurs event (W.E. CAN) every month. She is a mentor to the Arizona State University's W.P Carey School of Business Entrepreneurship Program. Swader also helps aspiring journalists from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Her new business and marketing book will be coming out later this year and Swader has a new show, "Real Talk, Real Business, Real People".

Sabrina Wottreng

Sabrina Wottreng was hired as PR director in 2017 for Kiser Group, KIG CRE and Enodo. Both KIG CRE and Enodo were acquired and Wottreng's efforts in branding, promotion, marketing and thought leadership helped those companies receive national attention needed for acquisitions. She has since gone on to start her own PR business–Sabrina Wottreng Public Relations LLC with accounts including Kiser Group and Luxury Living Chicago Realty.

During her three years with Kiser Group, she has exceeded the results of previously retained agencies. In 2018, Wottreng secured 159 media placements for Kiser Group for listings, closings, new hires, company promotions as well as ghostwriting thought leadership articles on Forbes.com. Most notably, she secured press placement in Crain's Chicago Business for a large condo deconversion listing which generated a $38 million buyer.

She earned a place in the 2019 "30 Under 30″ from the Publicity Club of Chicago.

Instant Insights /

14 Women Who've Cut Through the CRE Marketing Clutter

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