2022 Spring Issue - 36

developments
WLI Prologis
Achievement Awards
Help Level the Playing
Field
Program produces real
results for winners.
It was 2012 when Diane Burnette,
who at the time was working for
Kansas City, Missouri, not-for-profit
Midtown KC Now, received the
news she had been waiting for:
she was selected as a recipient of
the Women's Leadership Initiative
(WLI) Prologis Achievement Award.
Since Burnette could not afford to
attend the ULI Fall Meeting without
the award, she was grateful for the
opportunity. She was also anxious
to bring ideas back from the meeting
that she could implement at
her local district council.
" It was fantastic, " Burnette says
of the experience. " I thought I was
the luckiest person in the world. "
The annual awards are given
to women who are ULI members
with at least seven years of real
estate experience. They must have
exhibited leadership in their district
councils or on the national or
global levels to be selected for the
award, which funds the winners'
participation at the ULI Fall and
Spring Meetings.
Once back in Kansas City, Burnette
helped kick off WLI at ULI
Kansas City, as well as other programs.
A tsunami followed.
" The next thing I know is we
always applied, " Burnette says of
ULI Kansas City. " We never let a
season go by, or a Fall Meeting or
scholarships season go by, where
we did not submit because it's
like, don't miss this opportunity. "
That sentiment is what Gayle
Starr, a WLI Executive Committee
36
URBAN LAND
SPRING 2022
member, hoped for. Starr, now a
Prologis consultant, was managing
director of capital markets at
Prologis and a member of the
company's Breakthrough advisory
council, made up of senior female
leaders, when she helped identify
the need for such a program.
" I took on that responsibility,
and I looked around at what
organization would do the best
at trying to promote this, " Starr
says. " That's when I got involved
with ULI. "
Prologis, a San Francisco-based
real estate investment trust, was
looking for ways to introduce more
women to senior levels of real
estate, Starr says. The company
also wanted to find more ways to
increase the representation not
only of women in the industry,
but also of people of color, says
Colleen McKeown, chief human
resources officer at Prologis.
" Anything we can do to help
encourage and sponsor women
and others to be in the industry,
even if they don't work for us,
is a great thing for everyone, "
McKeown says.
Starr says working with WLI was
the perfect fit. Diane Hoskins,
co-chief executive officer at
Gensler, agrees.
" WLI as an umbrella is really
important to ULI and to the real
estate industry, " Hoskins says.
" Then when we talk about the
Prologis scholarship program, it
just brings even more action or
more actual kind of investment
in the next generation of women
leaders in real estate-through
professional development, through
professional networking, exposure,
and opportunity. "
Opening doors to help diversify
the industry is a goal of the WLI
Prologis Achievement Award. White
men hold more than 75 percent of
senior executive jobs in the comThe
annual awards are
given to women who are
ULI members with at least
seven years of real estate
experience. They must have
exhibited leadership in their
district councils or on the
national or global levels to
be selected for the award,
which funds the winners'
participation at the ULI Fall
and Spring Meetings.
mercial real estate industry nationwide,
compared with 14.1 percent
for white women, according to a
Bella Research Group and Knight
Foundation study. In addition, 1.3
percent of these jobs are held by
Black men and less than 1 percent
by women of color. In contrast,
women represent more than 50
percent of full-time employees
at the junior level, according
to the " Global Real Estate DEI
Survey 2021, " in which ULI was a
participant.
" One of the goals of WLI is to
raise the visibility of women leaders,
and the scholars program is
just an absolute perfect way to do
that, " says Ellen Klasson, WLI chair.
" It's taking women who are already
leading in their companies-they
are already leading within ULI,
whether locally or at the Americas
level-and giving them the opportunity
to be on a product council,
which is incredibly hard to get a
spot on. "
" The opportunity for participation
that the award provides is
important to the overall strategy
2022 Spring Issue

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