On March 8th, and in honor of International Women’s Day, CREtech held its first annual {HER}oic event that was widely attended by both male and female professionals in the commercial real estate tech space. The event was created to celebrate and recognize the amazing female leaders and mentors in the commercial real estate tech industry. While the industry statistics have tech startups at 74% male and 26% female, here at CREtech, we are proud to be 75% female and 25% male.

Held on the stunning second floor ballroom event space at WeWork Bryant Park, the event began with lots of caffeine and breakfast goodies to fuel the attendees for the day.

The event sessions kicked off with a morning meditation led by Lilli Markle of hOM. Imagine a room full of business professionals - quiet, focussed, unplugged and centering their day. Talk about something that doesn’t happen often in our world of technology today!

Wooooooooosahhhhhhhhhh!!!

Following the meditation, a panel discussion moderated by Lindsay Fierro of NAI Global, panelists included Emily Line of Realtors Property Resource (RPR), Caren Maio of Nestio, Francesca Loftus of hOM and Poonam Mathis of StealthForce, on Tackling the Invisible Barriers that exist in today’s workplace. Gender exclusion is still prominent in today’s work environments putting women in a challenging position. The panel provided an in-depth look on how these top female commercial real estate tech executives overcome diversity challenges, the role of entrepreneurship in industry evolution and what the future holds for women in the workplace.

The event concluded with a keynote presentation, From One of the Guys to Proudly Female, from Sarah Spain, columnist for espnW, a SportsCenter Reporter, the host of ESPN Radio's "Spain & Fitz" and the host of her own ESPN podcast, "That's What She Said." In her presentation, Sarah shared her personal experiences as a woman in a predominantly male industry.

Sarah concluded her presentation with “nut up and change it” which received a round of applause, laughs and cheers from the crowd.

The event was sponsored by Realtors Property Resource (RPR) and WeWork.