She is one of the most powerful people in commercial real estate in Canada, heading up a multibillion-dollar portfolio for Quebec's largest pension fund, but Nathalie Palladitcheff got her first C-suite job after deciding to take a journey nearly half a world away.

In 1997, when she was 30, Palladitcheff left her native Paris for a job with Banque Française Commerciale, based on an island in the Indian Ocean, because it offered her the opportunity to break into the upper ranks of the corporate world as chief financial officer.

"It was really far from my home, and probably because of that, I wanted to succeed," said Palladitcheff.

That decision would put Palladitcheff on the path that eventually led to her role today as president and CEO of Montreal-based Ivanhoé Cambridge, the real estate arm of pension fund manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. Ivanhoé Cambridge had 69 billion Canadian dollars, or 51.4 billion U.S. dollars, in real estate assets across the globe at the end of 2021.

Palladitcheff joined Ivanhoé Cambridge in 2015 as executive vice president and CFO, was promoted to president in 2018, and was appointed CEO in 2019.

"When I was appointed, I wanted to succeed because, again, it was away from my home, my comfort zone. I want to deserve the hospitality I have benefited from migrating to Canada."

She became a Canadian citizen in February 2022, and when she got a Canadian passport for the first time, she realized what her adopted country had come to mean for her and her family.

"Failing was not an option for me," said Palladitcheff. "For me, part of the responsibility of being in the C-suite was I had to deserve this role."

Many women do well in their careers but still stall getting into the C-suite.

"I realized the chance I had, and I never left it," Palladitcheff said. For women, "sometimes you have to push a little bit harder to enter this very special club."

In 2000, Palladitcheff got her first taste of real estate and working for a public company when she joined the Société Foncière Lyonnaise, France's oldest property company, where she was a director of finance.

She got the job because of her experience in banking, she said, noting REITs in Europe at the time were looking for people with finance backgrounds.

Her own experience now includes public companies, private companies and pension funds. "For me, it's precious to have those experiences," she said, recalling her time at a public REIT and facing angry investment managers. "They are never happy with the stock price," she said with a laugh.

Palladitcheff said she feels a responsibility to help women be successful in real estate. Her advice to female colleagues is to jump on any opportunity they have to become part of the C-suite at their companies.

However, reaching the C-suite means a lot of eyes will be watching you even if you don't want to be a role model, she said.

"It's not enough to have the business card. You have to stand for something," Palladitcheff said. "You have to think of the company as one big entity. And that's what I expect of all my colleagues in the executive team. That they act as leaders of Ivanhoé Cambridge."

Everyone in commercial real estate had to start somewhere. CoStar's First Job column explores where careers began.