This year’s ICSC 4 Under 40 honorees are making standout contributions to their companies and to the Marketplaces Industry. Congratulations to Rappaport’s Thomas Bolen III, Sterling Organization’s Jordan Fried, Starwood Retail Partners’ Brian Ross and Sembler’s Eve Sembler

Raised in one of Florida’s oldest real estate families, Sembler’s vice president of leasing Eve Sembler views her recognition as an ICSC 4 Under 40 as a dream come true.

Her grandfather Mel Sembler founded the firm, and her father, Greg, is CEO now. The company recently celebrated its 60th anniversary, having developed more than 350 retail projects throughout the southeastern U.S. and Puerto Rico. Those projects total almost 30 million square feet, and the company leases and manages 9 million square feet across 56 properties and has a development pipeline of 13 grocery-anchored centers, plus an additional 2.6 million square feet. “My dad brought me to my first ICSC conference when I was 14,” said Eve Sembler, who turned 30 in August.

“They made me a scavenger hunt, so I had to go around the show floor and ask people trivia questions. That really pushed me to start up conversations with strangers and learn more about the industry, which was really fun.” She also attended a leasing meeting. “Seeing the magic of that meeting, it all clicked for me,” she said. “And that is what I wanted to do.”

Sembler earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 2014 from the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, where she studied finance and marketing and minored in American cultural studies. While there, she interned with Brixmor, and she got hooked on the experience. “All I wanted to do after college was go work at Brixmor in the national accounts team,” she said.

That wish became a reality after graduation. Sembler joined Brixmor’s national accounts team in New York, focusing on direct-to-franchisee leasing. “It was a really cool job because Brixmor had a very large portfolio and my job was to go through the existing portfolio and all of the existing franchisees and reach out to them to see if they wanted to open a second or third location,” she said.

Brixmor soon promoted Eve to the peripheral leasing team, and she eventually became vice president of that group, managing more than 90 accounts and supporting the marketing, negotiations and delivery of more than 200 outparcel leases across four regions.

She joined Sembler in September 2021 as vice president of leasing, and in the past year, her team has increased the occupancy of the company’s centers from 93% to 98%. Also in that time, it has completed 375,000 square feet of new leases and about 400,000 square feet of renewals.

As for being named an ICSC 4 Under 40, she said: “I always used it as a benchmark, my goal of: One day if I could achieve that, it would be incredible. I am very appreciative of the people that I have met along my career and who have taken an interest in me and really helped me and pushed me for this. And I can’t say I would be where I am today if it wasn’t for ICSC.”

Looking ahead, she said: “I have been privileged to step into this third-generation company with such a deep history of success and really try to think about how we are going to position Sembler for the next 50 years.”

Eve Sembler also is focused on mentorship and creating more opportunities for women in the industry, as well as implementing more innovation and technology. “I am always very focused on learning,” she said. “With every challenge, first of all, figure out how to solve it, and second, really think: What did I learn from that, how can I get stronger, how will I face that the next time around and do even better? That is a huge component of how I think of myself and how I face challenges.”

Written by ICSC on December 7th, 2022 (Original Article)