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RESOCAL celebrates the region’s most accomplished female
executives, including the 2008 Woman of the Year, Andrea
Biller, and our Hall of Fame inductees
Nearly 100 of the commercial
real estate industry’s top
women gathered at the City
Club in Downtown Los Angeles for
a Nov. 13 luncheon to pay tribute
to the accomplishments of the 40
women chosen for Real Estate Southern California’s 9th Annual Women of
Influence issue in October.
The keynote speaker at the event, co-hosted by Allen Matkins
Leck Gamble Mallory
& Natsis LLP, was Delores Conway, director of
the Casden Real Estate
Economics Forecast at
USC’s Lusk Center. Her
speech outlined the
daunting market faced
by those in the real estate industry in Southern California. “What
we have now is a full-blown financial crisis in
the US,” she noted. Also
speaking at the event
was Los Angeles City
Councilwoman Wendy
Greuel.
The event included a panel discussion
and then a presentation of the Woman
of the Year award to Grubb & Ellis Co.’s
Andrea Biller by last year’s award recipient, Mary Jane Olhasso, economic development director of Ontario. Biller,
the general counsel and corporate secretary of Grubb & Ellis, served as the top
legal counsel on the deal that brought
together Grubb & Ellis and NNN Realty
Advisors last year.
“I was just fortunate in my career path
not to have many of the hurdles many
other women face,” Biller said in her acceptance speech. She added that the glass
ceiling still does exist, “but I think there
are holes in it and we have to make those
holes wider every day.”
Biller was included on a diverse list of
industry professionals, and this year’s list
shows just how important women have become in the commercial
real estate industry. Also
new this year was a Hall
of Fame list, with three
women chosen because
they have made the
Women of Influence so
often. The three Hall of
Famers are: Sonia Ransom, a partner with Allen
Matkins; Mary Ann King,
president of Moran &
Co.; and Diane Miramontes, an investment and
multifamily sales specialist and Grubb & Ellis|BRE
Commercial.—SOCAL
RESOCAL'S Woman of The Year Andrea Biller happily accepts her award.
