Donna Abood

Abood is one of Miami-Dade County’s top office lease brokers and a female trailblazer in commercial real estate. She’s leased more than 80 million square feet of office space on behalf of landlords, but she has also worked with tenants. 

Abood started her namesake firm in 1989 and later merged it with Michael Fay and the late Thomas Wood Sr.’s firm, forming Abood Wood-Fay Real Estate. The company eventually worked with Colliers clients and was rebranded as Colliers until Avison Young acquired it in 2014. A decade later, Abood became co-head of Savills’ Florida business, overseeing recruitment, retention, visibility and revenue from South Florida to Tampa Bay. She also is Savills vice chairman. 

During her decade at Avison, Abood became the firm’s first woman to serve as managing director and worked on several key office leases during the pandemic-era influx of companies to South Florida. She represented Canadian asset manager CI Financial (now known as Corient), which first leased 20,000 square feet at 830 Brickell, and then doubled its space at the tower. She also represented Sandals Resorts’ Unique Vacations marketing and public relations arm in leasing Burger King’s former headquarters at Waterford Business District. Her clients include Shoma Group, TA Realty, Hermès and others. 

— Lidia Dinkova