The Southern California native earned her bachelor’s degree in finance from California State University, Fullerton, and she now lives in San Francisco. At age 24, Solanki joined Hollis & Associates, a boutique commercial real estate firm specializing in retail and based in Los Angeles. The firm’s primary client was the Newport Beach, Calif.–based Irvine Co. “Every Friday we did portfolio reviews with the head of Irvine Company, so we had head of legal, head of leasing, head of asset management all sitting at a roundtable with the property management, leasing, construction and management teams, and we would go through each property holistically. That is what really drove me to become very passionate, and that continues to drive me to where I am today,” she said.

The 25-year member of ICSC has also been executive vice president of retail services at Madison Marquette, repositioning community centers as lifestyle projects and identifying opportunities to create value.

Solanki joined Colliers in 2011, and after she had worked with institutional clients for about three years, the company recognized her passion for retailing and named her national director of U.S. retail services. She now oversees 500 people as they provide strategic retail advisory services to tenants and shopping center owners across lifestyle, community, power center, neighborhood, mixed-use retail/residential and resort retail in 140 markets.

When advising property owners, Solanki enjoys a holistic, group approach to the next step for a property, in the spirit of her early-career experience at Hollis. “With retailers, I am always looking at how [they are] handling their business, versus the actual real estate itself,” she said. “To me, it is really about the business fundamentals and helping our retailers from that point of view.”