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The ongoing transformation of the National Association of REALTORS® was the talk of this year’s AE Institute. At a panel of top leaders, AEs got a candid discussion on the challenges of navigating change and uncertainty—and NAR’s effort to create a more unified, responsive organization, in part through strengthened communication with local and state associations and brokerages.
Throughout the Institute, which took place April 1–4 in Denver, AEs attended sessions on managing MLS changes, brushing up policy documents, communicating with local boards and volunteers, handling conflict, managing legal risks and improving strategic planning, while choosing among education tracks catered to the size of their association.
Tricia Thomas, RCE, CEO of Bay East Association of REALTORS® in California, serving as 2025 chair of the Association Executives Committee, moderated the panel discussion among Nykia Wright, NAR CEO; Sherry Chris, NAR special advisor, brokerages; and Jarrod Grasso, NAR senior vice president of industry relations.
The panelists lauded the organization’s “three-way agreement” as a unique system that facilitates collaboration among the national, state and local associations, and offered ideas on how AEs can become trusted advisers to their boards, staff and local members. They also talked about leaving room at the table for member engagement, empowering leaders to do what they do best, and having a humble willingness to learn from each other. Here are highlights.
Thomas: Nykia, you joined NAR at a time of profound and existential change. You have brought wisdom, perspectives, insights and your voice. Please share with us, what is your vision for the future?
Wright: Thank you so much for this opportunity to continue to address people in person. I think being “in real life” is a significant part of leadership, and I’m happy to be here. Leadership is isolated and it’s lonely, but it’s not selfish. And the reason that I say that is because it’s not really my vision. It’s our vision. It’s based upon the many thousands of interviews that we have had with members across the nation. It’s based upon the candid conversations that I’ve had with many people in this room. It’s based upon the dozens of conversations, soon to be many more, with the big brokerages across the nation. And it’s also a result of the conversations that I’ve had with staff. Based upon all of those conversations, we are beginning to see what the institution of tomorrow looks like.
It's been a bumpy road because while the industry has been changing, we’ve been a bit stagnant along the way.
What does tomorrow look like? Tomorrow looks like an organization where brokerages who have not been in the conversation for the last 15 years now have a seat at the table. Instead of having one point of contact, which has historically been the CEO, it is having a candid, consistent conversation with people like Jarrod. It is listening to what Sherry and her former colleagues [in the brokerage community] have said. This is what NAR [has been] missing.
If you can imagine planning for a dinner party for five people and, all of a sudden, it’s a family reunion for hundreds, we’ve got to make sure that we have room at the table for all of those people and all of those voices.
The vision is collective; the vision is changing constantly, but we are trying to catch up and change with that.
Thomas: Sherry and Jarrod tell us why you accepted the opportunity to work with Nykia, and why now?
Chris: Last summer, when I met Nykia, we talked about large brokers, medium-sized brokers and small brokers. I said, I think that I can help you because I have [built-in] relationships. When I joined Jan. 1, I started picking up the phone and talking to several big brokers. [In any] business, whether it’s an association or a publicly traded company, which is where I spent most of my career, communication is key.
As I sit here after 90 days, I feel that we’ve made a lot of progress, because almost every large broker that I’ve talked with has said, “I want to be part of a solution.” With Nykia’s vision and the new leadership team that she’s put around her, I think we have a very, very bright future.
My business experience tells me that you can do anything that you put your mind to. You just have to believe in it. And I believe in the future of NAR.
Grasso: I started my career with New Jersey REALTORS® in 1999 when I was brought in as a government affairs director. In 2008, when they promoted me to CEO, it was a tough year [due to the recession], and we weathered that storm. And I can tell you [Nykia’s] leadership—and the leaders that she’s working with on the volunteer level—is what convinced me that now is the right time for me. I want to make contact with all of you—the state and local executives, including MLS executives—as my colleagues.
Thomas: Each of you has gone through similar times of change and uncertainty. What lessons have you learned from that? And what tools and skills can you share with us that we can take back to our leadership teams on keeping our groups together and thriving?
Wright: There are not enough minutes in the day for me to manage a relationship with 1,100 associations, to manage a relationship with hundreds of brokers, to manage a relationship with hundreds of staff, to manage our relationship with government agencies and support our advocacy efforts.
I hire people who are smarter than I am. If I’m thinking about what is in the best interest of the enterprise, then the enterprise is going to win.
Governance is difficult. Leadership is difficult. I think we need to give each other a bit more grace. "Grace," I think, needs to be permeated throughout our leadership, throughout our conversations. I think you can easily cross-examine someone without upsetting the apple cart.
[Real estate professionals who are] REALTORS® say all the time they’re in the relationship business. And sometimes we forget about the discipline and the coordination of relationship management. When we are in chaos, we drop some of those [relationship skills] that we need to continue to pick up.
Thomas: I love that. I was looking for that one word that I could put in my pocket and take home, and I think it’s grace.
Chris: I went through 9/11, a financial crisis and [the pandemic], and a lot of learning came out of that. I believe in the “Nykia Wright School of Business” and that is: As a leader, your job is to surround yourself with the very, very best people that you can and empower them to do their best work.
When I launched the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brand in 2008, we wanted to do something different. We wanted to be different than all the other brands out there. And so, we launched it on social media, which had just started then—Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn—and people didn’t even know what it was. In my environment—a multibrand company—at first my colleagues, who were really competitors, were pointing fingers, kind of chuckling because they thought, that’s silly. And then suddenly it took off and we started growing. Soon they were asking me for marketing advice.
To me, that’s leadership. Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Do things that are a little outside the box. The worst phrase for me is, “We've always done it that way.”
Nykia has empowered me to look at the status quo and suggest the necessary changes from a brokerage perspective that need to be made.
So, my takeaway word is “innovate.” I’m going to be picking your brains on how we can connect NAR with our broker-owners across the country, innovating on developing relationships with the brokerage community.
Grasso: My word is "opportunity." When we’re going through change, and things are coming at us a mile a minute, I look for the opportunity that’s out there.
And I’ll go back to [the COVID-19 crisis]. When the state of New Jersey was shutting down, when the world was shutting down, I took that opportunity to communicate more with my membership and more specifically with my local AEs on the front line. You are the boots on the ground. I wanted to make sure that I was providing valuable information to you and to make sure that you could deliver a clear message.
Thomas: As you’ve come together as a new team, what have you learned from each other?
Grasso: When I look at Nykia, she’s not playing checkers. She’s playing chess. She has a style and a vision that I don’t think I've ever experienced in my professional career. Where she’s guiding us is going to take us to the forefront of real estate. We’ve been there before and we’re coming back—plain and simple.
Sherry is bringing her knowledge of the brokerage community. Having Sherry on the team, getting that member perspective, is so valuable. She knows how to communicate with her colleagues. And I think that the team that we have now is going to be a huge asset to this organization.
Chris: Before Jarrod even started in his new role, he picked up the phone and called me about a problem he was working on. Our cell phones light up back and forth all the time, and we’re sharing ideas and perspectives on how to make this industry better for everyone.
Nykia said, “I'm going to treat NAR like a public company.” And so, I’m thinking to myself, that’s kind of [amazing], but what exactly does she mean? It means you hold people accountable for their work. It means you try to find better ways and different ways of doing things. It means that the status quo doesn’t have to be the status quo. And that’s when I said to myself, “I’m on board.”
Wright: Sherry was able to soften my edges before meeting with some of the big brokers —leading to very successful first meetings.
Jarrod’s background was government affairs before he became CEO. One of the things that I’ve seen is that he is a master of compromise, finding that middle ground, and that means listening to all sides and coming up with solutions.
Thomas: If you had to come up with one headline to describe the nature of the three-way agreement between NAR, the state associations and the local associations, what would it be?
Wright: Members, and state and local associations, see NAR as a home away from home.
Grasso: The three-way agreement is the envy of others. The REALTOR® "R" solidifies us as an organization.
Chris: Consumers benefit best from hiring a professional who is a REALTOR®, involved at the national, state and local levels.
Editor’s Note: The discussion was edited for length and clarity. Join NAR for the 2026 AE Institute, March 24–27 in Minneapolis.