New roles for Martha Turner leaders
Martha Turner, one of the grande dames of Houston real estate, is stepping away from her role as copresident of the firm she founded some three decades ago and grew into one of the city’s top residential realty concerns.
Turner and her copresident in Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty, Tom Anderson, announced Tuesday that they would be stepping aside to make room for a new regime that would run the business on day to day. The pair will now hold chairman emeritus roles.
Marilyn Thompson, a native Houstonian and the company’s longtime vice president of sales, has been chosen to lead the firm, which was acquired at the beginning of 2014 by Sotheby’s International Realty.
After the acquisition, the New York brokerage tied to the storied Sotheby’s auction house said it would retain the local leadership. But there was still concern that Sotheby’s would recruit someone from the East Coast to take over.
“Our real estate world is a small group of people, and so ever since the sale of the company, the word on the street is that Martha Turner will retire someday and they’ll send somebody from New York to run the company,” Turner said. “We knew they weren’t going to do that.”
Turner expected there would be a regime change at the end of 2016, but she and other executives decided to move up the date.
The leadership change was announced Tuesday at a special breakfast meeting for the agents and employees at an event space in the Galleria area.
The response was “unbelievable,” said agent Sandra McHenry, who’s been with the company since the late 1980s.
“Everyone gave Marilyn a standing ovation,” she said. “Everyone was just thrilled.”
Turner and Anderson plan to retain key roles in helping steer the com-
pany’s future through continued involvement in business development, sales and marketing and mentoring.
“I told them I am going to remain as a goodwill ambassador and face for Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty,” Turner said. “I will continue to do the television commercials. I am going to promote Sotheby’s at all the social events I go to, the luncheons, the galas, and will continue to bring in business.”
She also said she’ll continue to accompany agents on important listings and speak to select organizations.
As president, Thompson will handle business growth and development, finance, corporate relocation and community involvement. Sales manager Robin Conner has been promoted to senior vice president, and sales manager Robin Suter has been promoted to vice president.
Thompson has worked for the firm for more than 20 years. She graduated from Lamar High School and earned a degree in education from Louisiana State University. After seven years teaching in Houston public schools, Thompson started selling real estate in the 1980s.
“In Marilyn you have someone that’s been with the company over 20 years, understands the business, has the highest respect from the agents, is smart and, most importantly, decisive,” said Anderson, 70. “That makes a great leader.”
Thompson said she wants to continue to help the firm grow and add new offices to the expanding market. Today the company has offices in Memorial, Briar Hollow, The Woodlands, the Bay Area and Kingwood.
“No agent can know the entire greater Houston area,” Thompson said. “It’s impossible.”
Turner, a veteran in Houston real estate, cofounded Turner Owens Real Estate in 1981. The company became Martha Turner Properties five years later.
Over the last two years, the company’s 245 or so sales agents have been involved in more than $2 billion in closed sales volume each year.
Turner, an East Texas native who turned 75 in June, still plans to come into the office most days. Her schedule will be more flexible, but she is not retiring.
“It’s kind of bittersweet because I’m handing over something I birthed. It’s like when you have a child and that child begins to grow and they go off to college. It’s slipping away in my hands,” Turner said. “But I can still see it every day and watch it.”