NAWRB Introduces Weekly WHER Chat Series

WHerCovers

In honor of the release of the 2019 NAWRB Women Housing Ecosystem Report (WHER), NAWRB invites the housing and real estate community to participate in the WHER Chat series to discuss key topics and themes in the report. Each week, we will post a “WHER Chat” blog with a different topic for public discussion. Professionals and industry experts are encouraged to bring their unique perspective and overlooked problems or issues to create an informative and engaging dialogue regarding the dynamic ecosystem.

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2019 Women in the Housing Ecosystem Report (WHER) to be Released at NAWRB Conference

WHerCovers

Women in the Housing & Real Estate Ecosystem (NAWRB) will release the NAWRB 2019 Women Housing Ecosystem Report (WHER) for attendees only at the 2019 NAWRB Conference, Redefining Leadership, on Aug. 4th-6th at the Langham Huntington in Pasadena, CA.  The third installment of the most diverse coverage of the Housing Ecosystem has over sixty resources in six volumes, including Diversity & Inclusion, Homeownership, Women-Owned Businesses, STEM, Aging Population, and Family Offices with a gender lens perspective.

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WHER Chat: Gender Lens Investment for Venture Capital Firms

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One up-and-coming trend in impact investing is gender lens investment. According to Veris Wealth Partners, investment of this type has risen 41 percent in the past year, up to $910 million. In addition, the number of mandated publicly traded gender lens investment strategies has reached a total of 22, after 5 years of steady growth. This is an incredible increase from the years 1993 to 2012, when there were only 5 strategies for gender lens investing.

Join the discussion at the upcoming 2019 NAWRB Conference on Aug 4th-6th in Pasadena, CA, as industry experts address this issue and more affecting the economic ecosystem. Have something to add to the discussion? Share your thoughts! 

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Failure for Success in Women’s Leadership

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Long ago, I received some leadership advice from a good friend that has continued to resonate within both my work and personal life for years: Take chances. When you fail, admit your failures and learn from them. The fear of failing can be paralyzing, and leaders must do more than fail at random or simply learn from their mistakes. Being a true leader requires having the confidence to trust yourself and take risks, for it is only through taking risks – and often failing at them – that you can innovate and improve, explore new ideas, and pursue excellence for yourself and your team.

Failures give us the opportunity to reset, learn and grow, and a leader understands that it is crucial to take advantage of these opportunities. Your reaction, response and recovery from failure can be an incredibly powerful path to success. When you let go of the fear of failure and instead seek active learning, adopt various perspectives, embrace continuous improvement, pay it forward and – most importantly – never give up, it will allow you to lead teams through a journey of discovery, innovation and success.

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U.S. Women More Likely to Have Multiple Jobs

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Even though a majority of American workers are single jobholders, more workers are steadily holding more than one job in order to have another source of income,  gain more experience and explore multiple interests. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Multiple Jobholders in the United States: 2013 report, which looks at characteristics of workers by sex, industry, occupation and work schedule, about 13 million workers have two or more jobs.

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Senator Kamala Harris Proposes Equal Pay Certification for Large Companies

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Women who work full time are paid about 80 cents for every dollar a man makes, which adds up to over $400,000 in missed wages over a woman’s career. For minority women, the loss is about $1 million in missed wages, according to the National Women’s Law Center.

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DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity

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DiversityInc just announced their annual list of the Top 50 Companies for Diversity for 2019. Over 1,800 companies participated in a survey to evaluate the performance of their diversity-management initiatives in the context of their own industries. The four key areas under evaluation were talent pipeline, talent development, leadership accountability and supplier diversity. See below for the companies that outperformed the competition in diversity.

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Companies with the Best Outlook in 2019

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Comparably, a platform that provides comprehensive data on work culture for companies across the United States, just released their Best Company Outlook Awards 2019. The annual awards highlight companies with the best outlook, who are ranked by employee ratings regarding how they feel about the company’s future and whether they would recommend the company to a friend.

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Life of a Female Veteran: U.S. Army Combat Veteran Erica Courtney (Part 4 of 6)

With my EMBA close to completion, I was offered a senior level job at a logistics company in Miami. They needed me to lead and grow the government market. Even though I kicked and screamed about being pigeon-holed in logistics and contracting, it sure was a marketable skill. I used to buy everything, from BBQs and sunglasses to furniture and aircraft armor. I worked with the contracting officers and comptrollers who handle the big budgets routinely when I had to equip my units in the U.S. or abroad. Now companies wanted to know how to get to the person I used to be.

It was obvious people had no clue how to deal with federal buyers. I could build a section and plan out their approach. Sure, sign me up. I will take the job. For the first time, I had to think about what I was going to wear. It had been uniforms day in and day out forever. Not a big shopper, I found outfits on mannequins that looked good and showed up early, because if you are not early in the Army you are late. 

No one was there when I got there. The boss pulled up, happy to see me and said I was looking sharp. I thought nothing of it. I had to be very guarded; you never give off signals in the Army. My boundaries were disciplined. In Miami, flirtatiousness abounded. I wanted to be taken seriously and flirting would have destroyed that. I worked hard and the boss loved me, but I was in my own bubble. No one knew what I was doing or had any idea about government. I was not connecting with the workers. It was not a good fit. 

I left after a year. Corporate America was not my thing. However, during this time, Oprah and The White House Project named me, along with 50 other women around the country, a woman with the background and drive to change the world. We were all sponsored and flown to New York to collaborate with community, government and private leaders who inspired me to continue to serve. 

Degree in hand, I decided to go it alone. My family was now moving to Jacksonville, Florida. The need for government business development was there. I researched the market and found many unqualified people charging a fortune to break into this space. People just don’t know what they don’t know. You can’t just jump in. You have to understand the buyer’s language. I knew within 30 seconds if I would work with a vendor or not while serving. Why not prepare people correctly, especially if they were willing to pay for my expertise?
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