Tech skills vital, but people skills still matter, says Atlanta real estate CEO
Here’s some Atlanta trivia for you: The real estate company known as Harry Norman, Realtors was founded in 1930 by Emmaline Harrison Norman as Mrs. Harry Norman & Associates.
It calls itself “Atlanta’s first residential real estate company” — with its first group of sales associates known as “Miss Emmie’s Girls.”
Ninety-five years later, Harry Norman is led by another female real estate executive, Jenni Bonura, who has served as president and CEO since 2016.
Real estate has long been a popular career for women. According to the National Association of Realtors, 65% of Realtors are female. The NAR attributes the appeal to flexible work hours and opportunities to help families.
While Bonura doesn’t necessarily agree real estate is flexible “because truly dynamic, career-minded agents have to be ready at the drop of a hat,” she concedes it is a career path women often take.
“There’s a natural connection to home historically, and often females have a great design sense … so I think some natural tendencies help with that,” she said. “I’d like to think there’s also an entrepreneurial stretch in all of us. And the ability to set your own pace in real estate, I think, is attractive to everyone, but perhaps — at least historically — maybe more to females.”
Bonura came to Atlanta in 1999 for a job with professional services company Accenture. After a three-year stint as a software developer and project manager, she joined Harry Norman in 2002.
She was drawn to real estate in part because it combined working with people and technology. And, like so many women, she could chart her own course.
“In real estate, there is no ceiling. You’re very entrepreneurial. You can create whatever it is that you’re hoping to achieve because it’s a direct correlation to your individual effort,” Bonura said. “You have no guarantee of income, so your efforts today and every second of every day correlate to your paycheck.”
In 2007, Harry Norman was acquired by HomeServices of America, a real estate brokerage firm owned by Berkshire Hathaway. The firm has eight sales offices and hundreds of agents in Georgia, according to a spokesperson. Harry Norman also recently began listing homes through the Forbes Global Properties network.
Over the last 23 years, Bonura has seen the real estate industry evolve alongside technology that benefits both agents and clients.
This includes innovations like AI, which helps personalize searches on the Harry Norman website and powers a chatbot named Ava, as well as an app with a texting feature that helps agents connect with clients. The latter helps build relationships, which remain key in real estate, but are more difficult to develop in person as agents and clients don’t travel together as much since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“To me, it’s indicative (that) relationships still matter and you have to forge trust — maybe sometimes quicker. But the expertise and the knowledge has to be on point because things move at such a rapid pace,” she said.
The good news for aspiring real estate agents is it used to take 10 to 15 years to really build a career, but — according to Bonura — that’s no longer the case.
“If you are adept at technology and you are comfortable and at ease with relationship forming, you can be very successful with relative ease,” she added.
Leadership roles are a slightly different story. They require a unique skill set.
“One, you have to have the drive,” Bonura said. “Being a leader is a lot harder than people think it is. So you have to want to do it … and there’s a lot of people that don’t. In fact, I hear with great regularity from many of our top sales people, ‘I could never do what you do.’ And my answer to that is, ‘It’s not for everyone.’”
Her advice for aspiring leaders is to do some introspection first.
“It starts with: Do you really want to do this? Do you care about investing in other people and growing them versus trading off your own spotlight, so to speak?” Bonura said. “And I would say, do you like to think strategically and innovatively? And if that is something that drives you, then this might be the next step or a future step, so absolutely pursue it.”
AJC Her+Story is a series in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution highlighting women founders, creators, executives and professionals. It is about building a community. Know someone the AJC should feature in AJC Her+Story? Email us at herstory@ajc.com with your suggestions. Check out all of our AJC Her+Story coverage at ajc.com/herstory.
