Lisa St. John (here with her business partners) co-founded and is one of the six owners of the boutique brokerage firm LA Realty Partners. Originally from the small town of Maybrook in upstate New York's Catskills, she attended Colgate, got an MBA from Harvard and speaks Japanese. She was a Thomas J. Watson Scholar in Japan and became the first woman officer for Citibank in Tokyo, doing computer and aircraft leasing. She went to work at Tooley & Co, which was acquired by Trammell Crow and was partnered with fellow LA Realty Partners co-founder Peter Best. The two later were recruited to open the West LA office of JLL. She and Peter repped the LA Unified School District on its 1M SF HQ, a pivotal transaction that had political, real estate and financial components. Lisa says she's inspired by other women in real estate. (We agree.) Her advice to women who are just starting? Understand the quantitative side of a deal and how to run the numbers. "That's an area where you can add a lot of value to your team and your tenant." With two daughters and two sons, Lisa has served on the board of the Girl Scouts of Greater LA and currently is on the property committee.