Jami Savage-Gray is known in the commercial real estate industry for being a seasoned retail services broker at CBRE’s Phoenix office, primarily focusing on tenant representation at both regional and national levels.
Since starting with CBRE in 2008, Savage-Gray has closed more than $400 million worth of deals, but she is more than a successful broker to thousands of others outside of the industry.
After hours, outside of work, Savage-Gray lives, breathes and bleeds community service, maintaining a high degree of involvement through various charitable and philanthropic organizations.
She was the president for Valley of the Sun Active 20-30 Club, which is committed to supporting local children’s charities. Savage-Gray is currently the co-chair for the 2018 Phoenix Children’s Hospital Foundation Beach Ball Gala, which is the foundation’s largest annual fundraiser to provide healthcare for children and their families.
“I feel like it’s something I am supposed to do,” she says. “It’s a part of my everyday life. I don’t know how I would just not do it.”
All of Savage-Gray’s charitable work reflects her kind, selfless nature and passion to improve the lives of children and their families across the state. For instance, this year’s Beach Ball Gala, dubbed “Noche en Havana,” will benefit the expansion of the Newborn Intensive Care Unit at Phoenix Children’s.
She explains the renovations will transform the emergency center by creating private rooms for parents and their babies so they can spend the final moments with their sick babies in peace and solitude.
Savage-Gray says she’s grateful for the health of herself and three brothers as well as their fortunate childhoods, which she always tries to pay forward through her charitable work.
In addition to her fundraising efforts, she volunteers time to help mentor young women, which includes her current role as chapter advisor for Delta Gamma, a University of Arizona sorority in Tucson.
Savage-Gray also participates in different women’s youth workshops that educate young women on how to apply, interview and dress for jobs.
One workshop experience that still resonates with her is when she was partnered with a young woman about to turn 18-years-old and be released from the program.
Both of the young women’s parents were in jail and her dream job, her goal was to work at McDonalds, says Savage-Gray. “I will never forget how humbling that was.”
It reminded her about how simple life is. Your job title, paycheck, social status doesn’t matter, she explains. “It’s about what you want to do and I’ll never forget sitting there just in awe.”
