Real estate broker Sharon Enloe Baum (MBA ’65) cruises the streets of Manhattan in a chauffeured black Rolls-Royce that sports the license plate SOLD 1. Actually, in terms of co-ops and houses, she’s sold a lot more than one during her eighteen-year career. But in terms of dollars, it’s true that she’s “sold 1” — as in $1 billion in sales.

Baum is senior vice president and “Director of the Exclusive Properties Division” at the Corcoran Group, the top-selling residential real estate firm in a city where the average sale price for an apartment hit $1 million in 2004. Previously, she spent almost two decades in marketing at Chemical Bank, before quitting to try her hand at real estate in 1987. Then came that year’s stock market crash, which precipitated a six-year tumble in housing prices as well. “I decided if I could make it in a market that was going down, down, down, then certainly I would be able to enjoy the good times,” Baum told Bloomberg Markets (July 7, 2005), explaining why she stuck with it.

What’s her secret to success? “It’s all about the relationships,” said Baum, whose happiest one began at HBS, where she met her husband, Stephen Baum (MBA ’65), and has grown to include sons Ben (Harvard Law School ’98) and Sam (Harvard ’98).

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