A little over a year ago, Sarah Crouch did something many Ottawa professionals have done before – she travelled to Toronto to attend a networking event.
A little over a year ago, Sarah Crouch did something many Ottawa professionals have done before – she travelled to Toronto to attend a networking event.
The event was hosted by the Toronto chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women, also known as CREW, an international organization that serves in excess of 14,000 members at more than 80 chapters worldwide, to support their advancement in the industry.
Crouch, who is the manager of business development for First Onsite Property Restoration in Ottawa, said the experience was eye-opening and empowering.
It was also something she’d like to offer here.
“I realized there’s pretty much a chapter in every major city in Canada except for Ottawa,” she said. “I’ve worked in Ottawa my whole life and every time I hear something like that, I’m like, ‘Come on, Ottawa, we can do better.’ I’m always rooting for Ottawa to be successful and catch up to cities like Toronto in terms of what we have available here.”
For Crouch, the solution was simple: “We didn’t have a chapter, so I was like, I’ll just start one.”
Among women in fields like commercial real estate and construction, there has been an increased interest in groups offering networking and community building opportunities, especially in the last year.
In addition to CREW, which is still in the process of registering an official Ottawa chapter, local building owners’ association BOMA has seen increased interest in its Women@BOMA program and events. And just last year, another group for women across multiple sectors, City BuildHERs, was established in the nation’s capital to help women expand their professional connections.
While these groups continue to grow, Crouch said Ottawa is still behind other major Canadian cities when it comes to supporting these kinds of efforts.
“I wanted another avenue of networking opportunity in Ottawa, where it was about women supporting women and having a different way to come in and meet people in the industry,” said Crouch. “It’s very limited, the options we have in Ottawa. A year ago, I would belong to one association and I went to all of their events, but I felt there’s always room for more.”
In addition to networking events, which could include speakers and career development opportunities, Crouch would also like to draw inspiration from other CREW chapters. In Toronto, she said the organization hosts tours of facilities and projects across the city, offering a hands-on perspective on local real estate, exposure to programs and services and inspiration for unique environmental and sustainability solutions.
Interest in these women-led initiatives didn’t come out of nowhere, said Crouch. According to her, these industries still have a long way to go before they come close to gender parity.
“It’s sort of an ‘old boys’ club’ still,” she said. “(But in recent years) I definitely see more women. A lot of these women are calling the shots. They’ve done their work and gotten to where they are in a very male-dominated industry.”
With the number of women in these positions increasing, Crouch said it’s slowly getting easier to meet other women on the job. But organizations like this can help further close the gap.
She added that getting the project off the ground isn’t the easiest process. Before she can register the group as an official CREW chapter, it needs 30 members, a target it has yet to reach.
Still, Crouch said CREW has already hosted a few events in Ottawa and has begun to establish a foothold in the city.
“The registration of this chapter is very similar to opening a business,” she said. “But we’re very close to the finish line now – I can say that confidently. A year-plus into this, I wanted to give up several times. It was hard to get momentum going at first. Now, the word has definitely gotten out there and I have so many people reach out to me daily saying, ‘Oh, you’re starting a CREW chapter? I would love to be involved.’”
Women on the come up in male-dominated industries
CREW isn’t the first local group aimed at connecting women in commercial real estate. But according to Peg Gallison, it’s only in the last few years that these efforts have really taken off.
Ten years ago, Gallison led efforts to create a program within BOMA Ottawa – a group representing building owners and others in commercial real estate – to foster community within its female membership.
At the time, she said women were few and far between in commercial real estate, and that was reflected in BOMA’s membership.
“I’ve been with BOMA for 25 years,” she told OBJ on Thursday. “When I first started, it was a very male-dominated industry, and I saw the need to make a little bit of a change. So I contacted four or five women who were leaders in the industry and we decided we wanted to try something.”
Woman@BOMA hosts occasional events to bring together female members to share ideas and discuss issues in their industries. It also opens up avenues for women to volunteer and contribute their thoughts to BOMA’s social media and newsletters.
“It’s peer-to-peer,” said Gallison. “We’ve probably brought hundreds of women who get to meet each other, who maybe normally don’t go through our regular events because it’s intimidating walking into a room where there may be more men. The nice thing is, if you come to Women@BOMA, you get to know another person. You feel comfortable.”
Last year, Jennifer Cross and Kristen Buter were motivated by similar goals to start City BuildHERs, a local group to connect women not just from real estate and construction, but all sectors that contribute to city-building.
“It was after us realizing that there was not a lot of interconnection between all the players in city-building,” Cross, who is the National Capital Region business development manager for Marant Construction, told OBJ Thursday.
“Most people don’t understand how many roles there are on any construction projects. Those relationships between all those trades and consultants are key to getting a project done.”
Women are a rising force in those industries, according to Cross.
“What we’re seeing is that women are newer into this sector,” she said. “There’s a lot of effort to attract women into construction, commercial real estate, urban planning development … We’ve got labour shortages, we’ve got a focus on housing, so it’s driving the conversation. Suddenly there’s a need for more people in every role, and we can’t just rely on 50 per cent of the population. We need to open those doors for more diverse people to join these sectors.”
Cross said those efforts are producing results, with more women pursuing those careers from the beginning, and many others rising through the ranks into senior roles.
Despite these efforts, women remain largely outnumbered by men in many construction-related industries. In engineering, for example, only about 16 per cent of workers are women. In architecture, that number is only slightly higher at 19 per cent.
Cross herself entered the construction industry only about three years ago after a career in real estate.
“I was unprepared for how few women there are in this sector. I would go to events and the room would be full of men,” she said. “I continually get surprised faces when I show up on a project.”
Because of that dynamic, she said creating networks for women can be challenging.
It’s that ongoing barrier that she said is contributing to an increased interest in groups like City BuilderHERs and CREW.
“I started to realize that I can’t control that element – I can’t control how many men are in the room, but I can add more women,” she said.
City BuildHERs hosts networking events, as well as speakers and panels, to highlight women in leadership roles across local industries. The goal is to connect women both to form community and support systems and to generate professional relationships.
Cross said multiple women who have attended events have gone on to form professional partnerships on projects.
On a personal level, she said growing her own network through these organized groups has “made a massive difference.”
“I’ve started to realize that I need to play to my strengths and find my own path in this industry that adds value and might not look the same as my male colleagues. I think when you come into an industry fresh and you are the minority, there’s this thought process that you kind of just have to meld. When I started to realize that wasn’t working, that’s when I started feeling very comfortable in the industry.”
As CREW continues to work towards establishing its Ottawa chapter, both Cross and Gallison said they’re eager to get involved and collaborate with the new group.
“I know we would love to do something with CREW,” said Gallison. “Sarah and I are close friends and we are 100 per cent behind her. Once she gets started, I know BOMA would love to support and maybe co-host an event. That might be something to do right off the bat to help CREW grow.”
Cross added, “What we’re trying to do is level our networks up so we don’t actually, in the future, need these subgroups of support. I think that’s where we’re at today. I will be a member of CREW because these are my people; this is my network. I think as we learn to work together and see that there’s real value in women rising together, that will change things.
“We’ve always said we’ll drop the H in City BuildHERs when it’s no longer needed. That’s our goal. We just want to have a seat at the table.” 
