Nicole Mihalka
Managing Director
JLL
Nicole Mihalka started her career in commercial real estate without any of the typical connections or pedigree that many other young brokers have when entering the business. With a psychology degree from the University of Maryland and no immediate family in the business world (her mother was a nurse and father a professor), Mihalka was an outsider. Not to mention that at the time, only three percent of the brokers at her firm were women (the industry average at the time – in 2001 – was around 3-5%).
Mihalka leaned into these obstacles by developing business with music industry clients that had previously felt marginalized by the typical broker that dominated the field at the time. By 2006, she was the leading broker in sales of recording studios in Los Angeles. She also formed key relationships and became an expert in the Hollywood submarket early in her career.
