If you were at our event last November celebrating the top 50 women in Chicago real estate, you won't want to miss our upcoming hard-hitting panel, The Real Estate Money Machine: Chicago's Capital Stacks Power Brokers, Aug. 6 at 7am at the Trump International Hotel & Tower. One of our power women, LaSalle Investment Management managing director Chris Akins (pictured) will be a panelist.

At LaSalle for the past eight years, Chris leads multifamily acquisitions from Chicago to the West Coast (the western half of the US). Memorable deals: Entering student housing with a big $200M portfolio buy in '07 and the recent rebranding (and reno) of the 600-unit Onterie in Streeterville to Axis. She's also a heavy traveler as fund investment officer for LaSalle's $3B flagship, open-ended, core co-mingled fund (launched in 2010), and was just in Tokyo and Australia recruiting pension funds as potential investors. (It took 18 airplanes in five weeks, but she's finally back at the office.) Luckily, she took a break mid-business travel for some surfing and paddleboarding in Hawaii. Chris first touched real estate 25 years ago as a CPA at JMB. Advice from someone who's transacted $4B of real estate: Embrace your unique dealmaking style, especially as a woman. You don't have to be the loudest one, the tallest one or the best at golf to close. Hear Chris and our other panelists at Bisnow's The Real Estate Money Machine: Chicago's Capital Stacks Power Brokers, Aug. 6 at 7am at the Trump International Hotel & Tower. Register here.