Cushman names its first black broker

The real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield of Massachusetts Inc. has named Monica Cost to its leasing team, and executives said yesterday they believe she is the first black woman to enter the top echelons of a big firm in the Boston commercial real estate industry.

In a sector of the business world that is still largely populated by white men, Cost joins a team of eight brokers on the downtown team -- including two other women -- that secures tenants for landlords and fills the floors of the city's high-rise office towers.

''It was something I thought I would be really great at," Cost said yesterday, her first day on the job. ''It is extremely competitive, as am I."

Cost, who joined Cushman & Wakefield two years ago, spent a year in a leadership program at The Partnership Inc., a 19-year-old organization that offers assistance to corporations that want to develop and promote minority executives with high potential.

Beverly Edgehill, the chief executive of the Partnership, said she was flipping through pages of an industry publication a few weeks ago when she saw an array of pictures of real estate executives in Boston.

''I saw this brown spot in a sea of photos," she said. ''I did a double-take -- this can't be right."

There were women among the men, but except for Cost ''no people of color," Edgehill said. ''I was very disappointed it was just one, out of hundreds of photos."

Cost grew up in Philadelphia, attended Hampton University in Virginia before graduating from Temple University in Philadelphia in 1994, and later went to work for Reebok International Ltd. of Canton, analyzing how senior executives are compensated.

For two years, Cost has been operations manager of Cushman & Wakefield in New England, running offices in Portland, Maine, Manchester, N.H., Hartford, and Boston.

Cost said she wasn't sure when she joined Cushman she wanted to be a broker, but, ''I wanted to see what the real estate industry was about."

''I was pretty happy at Reebok and had a good career track," Cost said. ''But this sounded like a great company and a great opportunity. I didn't look back."

She's not working on any one account now, but sitting in on ''pitches," when the company makes presentations to secure accounts, and getting an understanding of the market and the major players.

That's crucial, said M. David Lee, a partner at Stull and Lee Inc., an architectural firm.

Lee, who is black, noted there have been successful black residential brokers in the Boston area, but he said the commercial world is different. ''There are relatively few women," he said. ''The ones who are there are hard chargers and high profile."

''It really is about the art of the deal, and that is a very insider's game," Lee said. ''That's over the golf course. It's kind of an old boys' network -- or young boys' network -- and certainly hasn't extended much into the minority community."

Only last month, Cushman & Wakefield appointed Ron Whitley, in the company's Chicago office, as its first chief diversity officer.

Cushman & Wakefield has 38 brokers in Greater Boston, including 10 women. Of a total of 85 employees in the Boston office, 32 are women. Three, including Cost, are minorities.

An executive of the New England Women in Real Estate, an industry group, said she knew of no other black woman brokers.

Edgehill said that a few other minorities had gone through the Partnership program in real estate but none had taken jobs. ''The industry in the Greater Boston area isn't as diverse as it is in other areas," she said.

Lee said people in real estate have been ''comfortable that minorities can handle deals with minority components, in the Dudley Squares of the world."

''But the notion that someone . . . would also have the skill set to operate in an environment that is largely white is something that doesn't always occur to people."

''It's great that person is going to be doing that," he said. ''I hope she will get the access she needs at top levels."

Cost is married with two children and lives in Randolph.

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.