M id A tlantic Real Estate Journal — Thriving Over 50 —November 19 - December 23, 2021 — 21A T hriving O ver 50
www.marej.com
Jay Olshonsky, NAI Global “It’s never about the money but it’s always about the money.” It’s the nature of our industry.
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time management. Getting the NAI Global job as president/ CEO in 2012 gave me a com- plete platform that I had never had before and I had to har- ness all of my past experience to thrive in this role. I remain extremely grateful to have this opportunity. Who do you feel was most influential in your lifewhen choosing this profession? The credit actually goes to my mother. It was 1982 and no one was hiring college kids and my mother was working for a developer in the Washington, continued on page 28A
ow do you contrib- ute to your com- pany and/or the in-
What was the most defin - ing moment for you? There are two ways to an- swer this. The most obvious is getting married, having children and now a grandchild. That provided the motivation at work. In my 30s, how- ever, I realized that I liked managing people, mentoring, running things and helping others succeed. When I was a player-coach I took a landlord client to lunch and it was her that recognized in me that I liked management more than brokerage deals. Shortly af- terward I transitioned to full-
Jay Olshonsky Years with company/firm: 11 Years in field: 39 Years in real estate industry: 39 Real estate organizations/ affiliations: CCIM, FRICS, SIOR, ULI, ICSC
dustry? My biggest contribution to my company is building a team of people that are capable of running a fairly unique company in the commercial real estate industry. We are a membership-based firm that needs to deliver a return on investment for our owners yet at the same time deliver services that enhance and help grow our 180+ membership base. For the industry, early in my career I taught continuing education classes on commer- cial real estate and throughout my career I have been involved with NAR’s Commercial Alli- ance in leadership positions, as well as leadership positions with local boards of real estate. And of course my involvement with RICS, SIOR and CCIM. What were some of your early goals and did any- thing happen to change them? I have been in commercial real estate my entire adult life. The first goal I had was to make $100,000 and I did that in my second year in the busi- ness, so I learned that I need to make non-financial goals as well as financial goals. There is a saying in our business that people have heard me say before: “It’s never about the money but it’s always about the money.” It’s the nature of our industry. Along the way I learned that one should have ‘stretch’ goals….or goals that can be pretty ambitious. As I moved into leadership posi- tions I learned that you some- times have to bite off a little more than you can chew, then get it done. What challenges and or obstacles do you feel you needed to overcome to be- come as successful as you are today? Even when I faced obstacles I had to figure it out how to overcome them, even if I had to take five steps back to move forward again. Early in my career I worked in some marginal neighborhoods and assignments, including lousy product types or buildings, because everyone in the DC market wanted to work the CBD core. I remember tak- ing a call from a building owner in Baltimore that had a property on the outskirts of
Washington which was about 40 miles from my office. I went out to meet him and he hired me. A couple years later I asked him, because I was a young kid just out of college, why he hired me, and he said
it was because I was the only broker that returned his call. It sounds ridiculous but often success is in just showing up. That experience and others led me to what drives me still today – I love the chase.
APPLAUDS & CONGRATULATES All of the leaders and professionals featured in this special section of the 50Over 50 series . Each of us have taken unique paths to this point in our careers, and our successes and accomplishments have been achieved with the support of others. Now it’s our turn to support the next generation as we help them ascend to their own levels of greatness .
Jay Olshonsky SIOR, CCIM, RICS President & CEO
NAI Global is a leading global commercial real estate brokerage firm. NAI Global offices are leaders in their local markets and work in unison to provide clients with exceptional solutions to their commercial real estate needs. NAI Global has more than 300 offices strategically located throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific, with over 5,100 local market professionals, managing in excess of 1.1 billion square feet of property and facilities. Annually, NAI Global completes in excess of $20 billion in commercial real estate transactions throughout the world. naiglobal.com
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