Peggy DaSilva is WX’s 2024 Woman of the Year: Celebrating Impact and Insight

Recognizing nearly four decades of leadership and advocacy in commercial real estate

New York Women Executives in Real Estate (WX) recently named Peggy DaSilva the group’s 2024 Woman of the Year. This honor is bestowed on a woman in New York commercial real estate with a breadth of accomplishments and a long-standing commitment to the industry.

DaSilva has been at the forefront of asset management in the United States, actively managing PIMCO Prime Real Estate’s U.S. portfolio with a keen focus on equity investments. Her professional journey has taken her from managing director roles at Canyon Partners Real Estate and CBRE Global Investors to influential positions at The Rockefeller Group, Deutsche Bank USA, Bankers Trust Company, Citicorp Securities, and Chemical Bank, including a tenure in its Tokyo office. Most recently, she has become the CEO of PIMCO Prime Real Estate’s U.S. business and a member of their global management committee.

Throughout her career, DaSilva has been a strong advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion within the real estate sector. She has mentored emerging professionals and championed initiatives to create opportunities for underrepresented groups, enriching the industry with diverse perspectives and expertise.

Speaking with DaSilva, it is clear that her remarkable contributions to the real estate industry, her leadership within WX, and her commitment to DEI within the sector ensure that she is a worthy recipient: Her designation serves as a testament to a career that has spanned 37 years and left an indelible mark on commercial real estate.

Looking back, DaSilva identified a few pivotal moments in her life that helped shape her success.

“I was very lucky to have an overseas assignment earlier in my career. It really opened my eyes to different ways of thinking, new cultures, and more nuanced approaches to work. I think it made me much more flexible and allowed me to broaden my horizons.

“It was also beneficial to be able to spend 14 years with one employer. It allowed me to grow expertise by working on a variety of different project areas, but also gifted me with the consistency of familiar colleagues. On the other hand, I think it’s so important to get involved in the real estate community outside of your own employer. I’ve made friends and colleagues at a variety of institutions around the world.”

As far as involvement with the community outside of the workplace, DaSilva’s legacy with WX is storied, from mentoring others to her experiences during the organization’s early days.

“As a former president of WX, this honor holds a very special place for me,” noted DaSilva. “I remember going to a Woman of the Year event shortly after the organization had formed, and my memory involves standing in a conference room somewhere on Sixth Avenue. Not a dinner, not a large event, just a gathering to acknowledge that year’s recipient — a very small group.

“When I see where we are today, with hundreds of attendees at the Plaza Hotel, it’s just a huge statement in itself in terms of where we’ve come as women in this sector.”

And it’s certainly been a journey beset with its unique challenges. DaSilva makes it clear that strides have been made in terms of more female representation in the space: “As a woman, speaking up and trying to make strides and make yourself visible and put yourself into a position of leadership was not always easy.” But setting that aside, it was learning from real estate cycles that proved to be one of the most demanding, but rewarding, facets of her experience:

“Everyone who has been in the industry for a long time knows that these cycles can be challenging. How do you get through them, how can you survive them — but more importantly, how do you take the lessons that you learn from them and apply them moving forward? When you’ve been in the industry long enough, being able to navigate these kinds of market movements, and then being able to impart that knowledge to others, is especially rewarding.”

An uncertain market requires patience, one of the virtues DaSilva notes she’d like more young professionals to embrace when asked what she’d tell her younger self. “When the markets are in flux be patient, as the win becomes that much more rewarding.”

Another lesson? “Take things less personally. In a professional capacity and in many situations, it’s easy to interpret feedback or a negative reaction as being a knock on you, but you learn at times that you might be in a difficult situation with no other outcomes. It may not be pleasant but you will benefit by overcoming it — and that can just as easily serve to make you stronger.”