Gilmartin, a two-time Fordham graduate, is the CEO of MAG Partners, a woman-owned, urban real estate company. She previously served as the CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, where, Crain’s noted, she was “the driving force behind some of the city’s most important developments” in recent decades, including “the Barclays Center and Pacific Park, which transformed Brooklyn, as well as the New York Times Building” in Manhattan.

After graduating from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1986 with a degree in political science, Gilmartin earned two New York City Urban Fellowships. She chose to work in the city’s public development corporation and soon realized she’d found her passion.

“Senior economic development managers would literally say, ‘Here’s the west side of Manhattan, what should we do with it?’ It was remarkable,” she told Fordham Magazine in 2008. “Some of the most significant development initiatives, like Times Square, were seeded during those years. I felt blessed to be in government at that time, and I imagine I felt like I was adding value.”

Gilmartin is also a board member of New York Public Radio and an executive committee and board member of the Real Estate Board of New York.

Alemany, who earned her MBA at the Gabelli School of Business in 1980 and received an honorary doctorate from Fordham in 2019, is the chairwoman and CEO of CIT Group and the CEO of CIT Bank. In the five years since she “called it quits on early retirement” to lead CIT, Crain’s wrote, “she has sculpted the commercial finance company into a top-20 national bank.”

She also serves as chairwoman of Fidelity National Information Services’ Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee; and as a board member for the Center for Discovery, Catholic Charities of New York, and the Partnership for New York City.

Both women have shared their expertise with Fordham and Fordham students. Gilmartin, who earned a master’s degree at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1990, has been involved with the Fordham Real Estate Institute, speaking on multiple panels and returning to campus to mentor and support current students, particularly through the Smart Women Securities group. Alemany also has returned to speak with students, including at a 2019 fireside chat with Gabelli School of Business Dean Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., GABELLI ’83, where she offered five tips for anyone looking to “begin or advance in any industry.”

On Linkedin, Rapaccioli said that she was “delighted to see” her friends and fellow alumnae recognized for their achievements.

“I am proud to know them, and I am grateful for all that I have been able to learn from them through the years,” Rapaccioli wrote. “I know you will continue to create change and pave the way for other women who will come after you.”

“I never got the memo that said that if you’re a woman and you’re at the table, you should feel intimidated,” said Gilmartin, who served as moderator at an April 25 panel discussion organized by the Fordham Real Estate Institute. The event was part of the institute’s new breakfast series, called She Builds, which focuses on women in real estate.

A former CEO of Forest City Ratner companies, Gilmartin, FCRH ’86, GSAS ’90, spearheaded the development of several high-profile projects in New York City, including the Barclays Center, the New York Times Building, and the New York by Gehry residential tower. She was honored with the Real Estate Board of New York’s Bernard H. Mendik Lifetime Leadership Real Estate Award last year.

“My rule is to always be over-prepared and know your place—meaning if you’re at the table, [you should]make a contribution … that was a life rule that I practiced.”

The discussion featured four other iconic women in New York real estate: Kathy Donovan, managing director of the Real Estate Finance Group at UBS; Nikki Field, senior global advisor of the Field Team of Sotheby’s International Realty; Joan Sapinsley, former senior vice president of Resource Capital Corp. and Resource Real Estate; and Christina Smyth, owner and founder of Smyth Law PC.

“There are women exceling everywhere,” said Gilmartin. “It’s a question of the recognition.”

Rising to the Challenge

Panelists spoke about the challenges they’d faced in their high-power careers, where they often managed multimillion-dollar, if not multibillion-dollar, deals.

Donovan, a member of the executive advisory council at the Fordham Real Estate Institute and co-chair of its industry outreach committee, spoke about her experience working in commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) on the global scale, particularly in Europe.

“CMBS in Europe existed, but [it was]quite different than what I was aware of than back [in the states], so there were an enormous amount of challenges,” she said, explaining that the position found her traveling to the Netherlands, Spain, and several other European countries throughout her stint. “It was like I was literally going to 12 to 14 different jobs.”

The expansion was necessary to help the company evolve, she said.

“At the time, we did a billion dollars and a half of loans, which frankly today, is not actually that much, but it was enormous back then, and I was pounding the pavement and originating, which I had never done before.”

Gilmartin said one of the toughest things she ever had to do in her own career was take over for real estate pioneer Bruce Ratner when he stepped down as chief executive officer of Forest City Ratner Companies in 2013.

“I spent two years planning for my ascension and I project managed that ascension as I did any other project in my career,” said Gilmartin.

Field, who has accomplished more than $2 billion in sales at Sotheby’s, has been part of the No. 1 New York City sales team at Sotheby’s International Realty for the past 10 years. But her rise to the top in the luxury residential real estate market began with her excelling at a challenge to sell a medical office that none of the other realtors of her firm wanted to take on.

“One specialization led to another,” she said, sharing that since 2008, she has added emerging markets in Asia to Sotheby’s growing global business.

Breaking Away

Some of the women have made advancements in their careers by being their own boss.

Gilmartin, a special advisor to Fordham’s Real Estate Institute, co-founded the development firm L&L MAG. And Smyth, who has worked in luxury high-end sales and real estate management, is the founder of the full-service real estate law firm Smyth Law PC.

“It’s really allowed me a tremendous amount of freedom,” said Smyth.

Still, Sapinsley, a founding member of the advisory committee to the Women’s Initiative of the CRE Finance Council (CREFC), said getting more women into positions of leadership in commercial real estate should be at the top of every business’ agenda.

“I think if we can get more corporations feeling a sense of responsibility, it will start to snowball out,” she said.

Advocating for Women

In addition to seeking out mentors and offering support to other women in real estate, the panel said women must not shy away from the spotlight.

“We as women have to really be our own advocates,” said Smyth. “If you think you’re worthy of a raise, you need to speak up.”

Toward the end of the event, a male attendee asked what could be done to get more women in commercial real estate.

Gilmartin emphasized that men in the C-suite can level the playing field in real estate by recognizing the success of women and working with them to create more diversity in the boardroom.

“The fact is that I believe that women are very good at this Rubik’s cube called real estate development, which has a lot of disparate parts and a lot of complications and deep problem solving, which we can do,” she said. “I think it begins with women getting in places where they can impact the outcome, and men like yourself, asking that question.”

To the women of the Gabelli School, though, it’s business as usual.

“The environment is open here,” said Rosa Romeo, a clinical assistant professor of accounting and taxation, who is the faculty moderator of Fordham’s chapter of Smart Woman Securities (SWS).

“There’s a tone at the top that as long as you do the work and you get the grades, you can accomplish what you want. There is no ‘you can’t do this because you’re a girl’ sentiment. You want this role—go for it. You want this internship—go for it.”

One needn’t look further than SWS to see this attitude in play, Romeo said. A nonprofit organization with chapters on 21 campuses around the country, SWS focuses on investment education for undergraduate women. The Gabelli School’s chapter is among the oldest—Fordham and Yale, which launched in January 2009, were the third and fourth colleges to form chapters following Harvard, where SWS originated, and Columbia.

“SWS is definitely shaping my experience at Fordham,” said Lauren Kelly, a sophomore finance major who joined SWS during her freshman year. “It’s about mentorship, building networks, and educating others. Basically, it’s an environment of women helping women.”

With more than 50 active members, SWS is one of the largest clubs on campus. Each new recruit is paired with an upperclassman member, who serves as a mentor in anything from club activities to classes to internships to interviewing.

“We encourage people to go for coffee with their mentors, to not be afraid to ask questions,” said Erika Schwartz, a junior accounting major and the chief operating officer of Fordham SWS. “The business world is competitive, so we emphasize supportiveness and being there for one another.”

Throughout the year, the group offers numerous educational seminars for its attendees, covering themes from résumé building to investment minutiae. Their cornerstone activity is an investment project, in which the students learn to research and analyze stocks and present their recommendations to a panel of judges.

In December, a group that included Elizabeth Fonger, a junior at Fordham College Rose Hill, Lorem Basile, a sophomore at the Gabelli School, and Kelly took their stock skills to Boston for the national SWS stock pitching competition. The group pitched Lululemon, and came in second place, behind Harvard.

“I think I’ve gotten a lot opportunities [from SWS]and have been the beneficiary of good mentorship. And I’ve been able to then pass that on to younger members,” Kelly said.

As chief development officer for SWS, Kelly recruits speakers for the group’s annual Women in Leadership Conference, which takes place this year on April 8. In past years, the group has hosted speakers such as Barbara Desoer, CEO of Citibank, N.A., and Andrea Jung, former CEO of Avon Products, as well as Fordham alumnae MaryAnne Gilmartin, FCRH ’86, president and CEO of Forest City Ratner, and Patricia David, GABELLI ’81, global head of diversity for J.P. Morgan Chase.

Their talks—which draw both male and female students—are reliably empowering, Kelly said. Last year, Liz Ann Sonders, GABELLI ’90, the senior vice president and chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, spoke about her business education at Fordham and the successful career that followed.

“Someone asked her why she wanted to go into finance, and she said to us, ‘I just thought it was the coolest thing ever to be a woman on Wall Street.’ We all loved that!” Kelly said.

“[SWS] isn’t only about education and building a network. It’s about smashing the perception that there aren’t women in senior-level positions in the business world.”

“Business is, in many ways, still a man’s world. So, if you’re a woman, it is more important to project knowledge, to be curious and confident,” said Donna Rapaccioli, PhD, dean of the Gabelli School. “To this end, there are opportunities around every corner at the Gabelli School for women to learn and to take on leadership roles.”

The business world has come a long way in working toward gender equality, Rapaccioli said. Still, in many areas there remains a “subtle bias” both about women’s ability to fulfill high-level roles and their interest in pursuing such roles in these male-dominated, high-intensity environments.

“What will finally eliminate this bias is a critical mass of extraordinarily talented women surprising the field—planting a stake in the ground in areas where people expect to see men,” Rapaccioli said.

“Our female students are these women. They are making me extraordinarily proud now, and I cannot wait to see what they are accomplishing when they are 25, 35, or 50.”

With this in mind, a new collaboration spanning four schools across Fordham will revitalize the way real estate education is delivered at the University.

“Real estate is one of the largest industries in the city and in the country overall,” said Nestor Davidson, associate dean for academic affairs at the law school and co-director of the Fordham Urban Law Center.

“To be a successful real estate professional today, you have to be able to navigate multiple aspects—marketing, management, finance, law, policy. As a university, we’re well-suited to build that platform.”

Building that very platform is at the heart of FIRE, Davidson said. Its first objective has been to spotlight each school’s approach to substantive and pedagogical questions concerning real estate, and to examine how these approaches might formulate a holistic real estate education.

“This gets into questions of housing, of inequality, of what it means to be a city today,” Davidson said. “As the Jesuit university of New York City, Fordham has always been in the city and of the city… And, as a university, we have an obligation to engage with these questions.”

Second, FIRE has been reaching out to alumni from law, business, and the humanities who work in real estate to serve as resources and mentors for current Fordham students seeking careers in the industry.

The alumni will also benefit from the initiative, said Kevin Mirabile, DPS, clinical assistant professor of finance and business economics at the Gabelli School. Ultimately, the members of FIRE hope to establish executive education opportunities for working professionals.

These opportunities would be cross-disciplinary—much the same as the real estate industry itself.

“Once alumni graduate from their respective schools, the lines get blurred in terms of the actual work they do,” Mirabile said. “Often, a person in this field is called upon to have some legal knowledge, an understanding of urban economy, of accounting, and more.

“There’s a whole universe of people who go on to operate in a field outside of their original academic discipline or who need to manage people across disciplines. We think that’s an audience that would like to come back to Fordham for lifelong learning opportunities,” he said.

FIRE’s goals to offer continuing education and to align the University’s diverse real estate pedagogies are pertinent as the world becomes increasingly urbanized, said Rosemary Wakeman, PhD, director of the urban studies program. Real estate professionals will need to be prepared to grapple with these manifold challenges.

“It’s not just the number of people coming into cities, but what happens to the building and real estate industries under the pressures of housing demands, gentrification, commercial development,” Wakeman said.

“These are not just industry questions. These are also social and cultural questions, and they’re important ones for everyone involved… It’s an industry you have to deal with from a wide variety of lenses.” 

Good evening.

Thank you, Dean Mast, for the kind words. I would also like to thank you, Provost Freedman and Rose McSween for inviting me here tonight for this exciting milestone event for Fordham College.

This year marks the 30th year of my graduation from Fordham College of Arts and Sciences. Since that moment on I have been dabbling, exploring, and toiling in the field of real estate. During my undergraduate studies I had no understanding of the industry, no sense of its deep dimension, and certainly no inkling it could be the most exhilarating, challenging, and rewarding career path for me.

My serendipitous foray into real estate can be traced back to this fine institution and the political science department, where Dr. Bruce Berg suggested I apply for an NYC Urban Fellowship where between undergraduate and graduate work, a group of 20 would be chosen to experiment and experience public service. This highly competitive scholarship program was launched by then Mayor Koch as a recruitment tool to draw young and eager talent into public service before graduates flocked to the private sector.

With a wide, ambitious, and curious lens (compliments of Fordham), I opted for economic development. This is essentially real estate with public purpose. And so began my professional love affair with real estate. It has been in my veins ever since.

Today, this F.I.R.E. initiative is as important to our profession as it is to the school’s students. We are a country of cities, where for the first time ever in the history of the world, more people live in cities than not. The 21st century definition of livable cities is being crafted, honed, debated, and drawn up. In every city across the globe, with every large-scale development plan; every rezoning initiative; every new building design; every new infrastructure undertaking; every new commercial lending program; every bull run and every bear market, the business of real estate is at play.

What makes our field so captivating, so impactful and so meaningful is that real estate thrives at the intersection of so many subject matter experts–to launch a single project, the business will tap into every Zip Code from architects, engineers, planners, lenders, and insurers.

Real estate has critical relevance to both the public and private sectors–forging deeply complex partnerships that have the power to transform and improve the human condition in ways that are concrete, tangible, and impacted.

I think about how fortunate I was, thanks to Dr. Berg, to let real estate find me. I think often about how many young minds would be drawn to the field if they only knew… F.I.R.E.will ignite passion and purpose into the minds and hearts of Fordham students; it will tap into and unleash its formidable alumni base, and finally it will, in the true Jesuit tradition, bring enlightenment and understanding, ensuring that the level of play in our business is held to the highest possible standard.

Thank you again for allowing me to be a part of this exciting moment.

— MaryAnne Gilmartin