2017 Women in Real Estate Spotlight - Susan Gray
Director, Marketing and Work Acquisition
Shawmut Design and Construction
Years in real estate: 25
How have you navigated obstacles to achieve success in your career: The main obstacles are during economic industry downturns. These have required diversification, nimbleness, and successful penetration of new markets—sometimes taking us out of our comfort zones, but always positioning us for future growth.
How do you play your strengths to your advantage in your career: One thing that has been an advantage in my career is that fact that I came up the ranks in marketing from entry level to executive. As a result, I bring a management style that is supportive and cognizant of the incredible workload, strategic thinking, creativity, and quality demands specific to marketing and work acquisition across a wide range of opportunities in multiple geographies and market sectors in our industry.
What trends are you seeing so far this year: We are seeing more sophisticated clients who desire true partnership, transparency, and outstanding service—something we fortunately excel at in our industry.
We also see a clear need for better data and analysis to keep up with client and market demands—we are countering this through structure operations and project delivery to meet a standard of success defined by the client.