Leisa: Hello, I’m Leisa Holland Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business where we’re going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things. My guest today is Sandra Porter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Business Development for Hines, one of the world’s largest real estate investment companies. Sandra, welcome to Women Mean Business.

Sandra: Thank you, Leisa. It’s great to be here.

Leisa: I’m going to guess when you were a kid playing in the backyard, on the swingset, or in the pool, even at ballet class, you couldn’t even imagine having this incredible job travelling all over the world being in charge of the brand, really, for Hines. Tell us how you got here.

Sandra: Well, it’s a long road and, you know, you’re right, I never imagined this in a hundred years. You know, when I was in college, I’m about to date myself, but the career choices were pretty much a nurse or a teacher, and so I majored in drama, theatre arts now, and I thought I wanted to teach high school drama because I loved acting and I loved the whole theatrical experience, the arts and culture. Life took over, and my life went in a different direction and I went to work for some really incredible people, and one is a commercial real estate developer who developed Riverway here in Houston, John Hansen, a former Hines person in Chicago, and that was my first foray into commercial real estate and I just fell in love with it.

My job is, I always like to say it’s one of the few jobs where you can kind of complete the cycle. So, with my team and I, when we’re doing new business development, corporate marketing, project marketing, events connected with buildings and developments, we get to see the whole picture, right? We come in to help pitch business, so we’re there from the concept. We work with them to develop models, and videos, and websites, and all the marketing materials, and the groundbreakings, and the topping outs, and the grand openings, and we truly see the building come to life and it is just such a great satisfaction for me. So, I love being in this position and it really plays to the creative side of my nature, and my brain, and so it’s been a great thing for me. I did not pick it, I didn’t just sit one day and go, ‘Oh, I’m going to go into marketing.’ I just gravitated towards this in every position that I was in; I would take on the events, and I would take on the press releases, and the interaction with the media, and I would help do the marketing. For one company, I was assisting with pitching new business, and so it’s all kind of wrapped into a variety of experiences over the years that just led me to this, really, and it’s just been perfect, a perfect fit.

Leisa: Thank you.

Sandra: You’re welcome.

Leisa: There you have it, another extraordinary woman doing extraordinary things. I’m Leisa Holland-Nelson, Partner, Vice President, and Chief Marketing Officer of Astoundz, your one search, one click, one company resource for all things interactive; websites, search engine optimization and social media. You can find me at astoundz.com or follow me on Twitter @lhnelson. We’ll be back again next week with another edition of Women Mean Business.