CREW Up: Making the Case for DEI

March 31, 2025

CPE’s Laura Calugar talks to President Cindy MacMillan about her career, priorities and views on recent disruptions in diversity programs.

Headshots of Cindy MacMillan & Laura Calugar — “I do think that I was lucky having great people who could champion and mentor me,” MacMillan confessed to Calugar during the interview. *Image by monkeybusinessimages/iStockphoto.com*

For the first episode of the CREW Up podcast series in 2025, I spoke with CREW Network’s Cindy MacMillan. As president of the organization, she has clear goals for the year: help the soon-to-be-elected new CEO to settle in, further expand the organization worldwide, and also oversee CREW’s benchmark study on women’s progress in commercial real estate.

While discussing women’s advancement in the real estate space, MacMillan referred to how the recent disturbance to DEI programs is impacting companies. The new federal anti-discrimination law has several implications for organizations, though there’s not a lot of clarity around it.

LISTEN TO: Women Can Gain a Competitive Advantage by Using AI. Here’s How.

“What we’re seeing is some organizations changing the language,” MacMillan said in this podcast. “You’re not changing the action, you’re just changing the language, so instead of calling it DEI, they’re calling it impact. And that’s fine! For those that are taking away initiatives and taking away funding, I think that’s really unfortunate.”

In the face of all these disruptions, CREW’s mission doesn’t change. “We’re here to advance women in commercial real estate,” she reiterated. “Diversity and inclusion will remain part of CREW’s key goals and values.”

Here’s what else MacMillan—who is vice president of asset management at Grosvenor and a member of CREW Vancouver, Canada—told me:

“Find those people who will stand up for you, believe in you and help you along in your career,” MacMillan said. *Image courtesy of CREW Network*

Her professional path (0:58)
Advice for women facing setbacks in their careers (5:08)
How CREW Network shaped her professional advancement (6:31)
Goals for this year (7:47)
CREW’s benchmark study on progress for women (10:02)
Corporate real estate leaders reacting to changes in DEI programs (11:35)
Sentiment toward real estate: takeaways from the MIPIM conference in Europe (13:33)

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