Suba, Team Put Relationships First
(Connect is spotlighting inaugural recipients of the Canadian Women in Real Estate Awards. In this article, we profile Lori Suba, who launched Calgary-based Scout Real Estate, an all-women firm specializing in industrial brokerage, during the COVID-19 pandemic.)
Lori Suba has not owned and operated Scout Real Estate for a long time, but she has enabled it to pull off a few coups.
Suba launched Scout, the only all-women commercial real estate brokerage firm in Calgary, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in July 2020. Under Suba’s guidance, Scout’s small team has completed more than 160 transactions while striving to put relationships with clients ahead of deals.
Scout has represented owners ranging from private investors to large Canadian REITs to U.S.-based investment funds. Tenant clients have included local startups and multinational firms alike.
The accomplishments become even more impressive when one considers that Suba’s boutique company focuses on an industrial sector in which demand exceeds supply and a Calgary office market that has been ravaged by the pandemic and unprecedented vacancy.
Scout received CREW Calgary’s 2023 Breakthrough Startup Award. In 2021, Suba received the CREW Network’s annual Entrepreneurial Spirit Impact Award, becoming the first Canadian to earn the honour then open to about 11,000 CREW members in Canada., the U.S. and the U.K. (CREW Network now has about 14,000 members.)
Suba has sat on the CREW Calgary board and served as president in 2019.
While Suba was starting up Scout in 2020, she and company vice-president Laurae Spindler also launched a highly successful commercial real estate podcast, Leasing Out Loud. To date, Suba and Spindler have co-hosted more than 60 episodes while building an audience across Canada, the U.S. and Europe via Apple, Spotify and Audible streaming services.
For her accomplishments, Suba has gained membership in the International Women’s Forum, an invitation-only network of the most successful women in the world, through its Calgary chapter.
Before launching Scout, she held leasing director and vice-president positions with PBA Group, CBRE and Real Estate Advisors.