“I used to look at my career and see interruptions. Now I see preparation.”
Lisa's path to MLS leadership was anything but linear, and she considers that her advantage. She built her career across human resources, organizational development, operations, marketing, and association management, through seasons when her career took a back seat to caregiving and family responsibilities.
“My biggest achievement is not a title, an award, or a single initiative. It is the fact that I kept rebuilding,” she told the MLS-PropTech Digest. “Caregiving has probably influenced my leadership more than any business school or executive position ever could. It taught me patience, empathy, advocacy, endurance, and how to keep moving when life does not conveniently stop.”
As a Black woman in MLS leadership, she wants more than diverse faces at the table: “I want greater diversity of thought, experience, background, and perspective at the tables where decisions are being made. I hope my presence opens the door a little wider for the person coming behind me.”
Her advice to emerging leaders: “Do not disqualify yourself because your résumé does not look like everyone else’s. Your unconventional experiences may eventually become the very thing that distinguishes your leadership.”
