Charmaine Brown, president and CEO at Connexions Consulting, sat down for a video interview at Nareit’s REITwise: 2026 Educational Conference in Hollywood, Florida, March 24-26.
Brown said REIT leaders should view people strategy as directly connected to business strategy, particularly in a challenging operating environment. “People are the driver of execution of the strategy,” she said, adding that issues such as turnover, disengagement, and underperformance should be understood as “a revenue leak.”
Brown emphasized that many organizations already have workforce data but do not always turn it into useful insights. Rather than starting with headcount or engagement reports, she said leaders should begin with business questions—such as why deals are being lost or why a pipeline is short—and then use workforce data to identify underlying issues.
For investors, Brown said culture, talent, and accountability must be embedded into the organization rather than treated as check-the-box efforts. “Culture is infrastructure,” she said. “When your workforce is engaged…all of that translates into positive returns.”
Looking ahead, Brown identified leadership readiness, evolving roles, and AI adoption as key talent-related execution risks for REITs.