Susan Loranger

Director of Marketing and Leasing

Douglas, Emmett & Co.

Claim to Fame: Heads leasing for 45 major commercial properties

As a child, Susan Loranger worked at her father’s car dealership in Ontario, Canada each summer doing everything from filing documents to negotiating car sales. Now, as head of Douglas Emmett’s leasing portfolio of about 45 buildings in the San Fernando Valley and the Westside, Loranger says those summers were the key to her success.

“I watched my dad, who was a dynamic person, deal with a lot of different types of people and work hard,” Loranger said. “That helped create in me a hard-work ethic that has sustained me all these years.”

That means responding to 150 calls during a typical 15-hour day. “I don’t know how she does it,” said former client Mitchell Leit, owner of Corporate Real Estate Services. “She just knows all of the information you need and is sharper and brighter than most. Her only fault is that she is too busy.”

Loranger, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, was also influenced early on by a family friend who conducted some of the largest commercial real estate deals in Ontario. When she left Canada for Los Angeles in 1984, the family friend offered to get her a job as a leasing agent, but she declined.

“I wanted to do it on my own and learn the business from the bottom up,” Loranger said.

She got a job as an office administrator, where one of her duties was typing leasing proposals. Then she got her real estate license and began working as an agent for Douglas Emmett on an independent basis. Loranger joined the firm in 1990 as the sole agent responsible for the leasing portfolio.

“I worked my way up through the ranks and positioned myself with a company that had a vision similar to mine, which was to grow,” said Loranger, who was promoted to her current position in 1997. “What keeps me on top is the drive to do my best every day. I got that from my dad.”

Jeannette DeSantis