Above, John Featherston and Nykia Wright at a one-on-one session at RISMedia’s 2025 CEO & Leadership Exchange
Washington, D.C.—In the wake of a period of turmoil for the organization, National Association of Realtors® (NAR) CEO Nykia Wright said in an incisive one-on-one discussion with RISMedia Founder and CEO John Featherston that much of the loss of trust and faith in NAR can be attributed to “arrogance,” specifically as it related to leadership and legal issues.
In the high-profile discussion covering the evolution of NAR at RISMedia’s 37th Annual CEO & Leadership Exchange, Wright told the audience of more than 400 real estate leaders that “internal NAR, through its arrogance, was not necessarily educating the leadership team on what they needed to know.
“They were out on the circuit perpetuating narratives that NAR had given them, and that’s the old NAR,” she continued.
As NAR seeks to implement a turnaround from multiple years of legal setbacks and leadership turnover, Wright has been tasked with winning back the trust of 1.48 million members (the current Realtor® count, she told the audience).
Wright began the discussion by recounting her experiences as a young person attending Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings with an uncle. She shared her favorite Warren Buffett lesson—“If they lost money for the firm, would be understanding and forgiving, but if they lost a shred of reputation, he would be ruthless.” Wright related that to her approach as she works to reshape NAR.
In her conversation with Featherston, Wright acknowledged that NAR has experienced a large loss of trust and reputation, emphasizing that she and the organization are aware of this.
“We understand the challenges that are in the industry post settlement. We understand the relationships that were ruptured, and we’re trying to sort of bring all of those together and then show them who we can be as we go forward,” she said. “By no means has it been easy, but anything that is easy is not worth doing.”
“I do believe this current storm is coming to an end,” she continued, and emphasized that continued growth is the key to a strong, prosperous future.
Wright said that she and the leadership team are “going around the country, meeting people where they are and helping to understand what went wrong in the past, and trying to figure out what we can do to help chart a more meaningful and better future.”
A substantive move made to work toward this future—and to help reduce the risk of further litigation—was the elevation of Jonathan Waclawski as general counsel and SVP of legal. Waclawski previously worked on the advocacy side, and Wright said he is now part of weekly leadership team meetings, ensuring NAR is not repeating “mistakes of the past.”
Of Waclawski, Wright said that he’s “got the mind of understanding who we are on the market, he’s got the reps of having been very seasoned professional, he understands a political landscape and also understands exactly what went wrong with regards to how we did not effectively manage the communications as it relates to the legal landscape.”
According to Wright, Waclawski advises effectively on what is “winnable,” what is “negotiable” and where the organization’s “blindspots” are, something she emphasized is needed.
Wright also noted that public perception of NAR had not just deteriorated within the industry, but on a wider scale, explaining that mainstream media has spread misinformation, leading to distrust from consumers toward real estate professionals.
“The journalists have continued to get it wrong,” Wright said. “Even though we’ve educated them on what the numbers have been, they will report the wrong numbers.”
She continued that many mainstream journalists “do not understand growth rates, do not understand integral math…to be able to communicate what’s going on with that.”
Wright also called out New York Times reporter Debra Kamin as one such misinformed journalist. Kamin is the investigative reporter who broke the original story of sexual harassment within NAR that ended with the ouster of former president Kenny Parcel, and has also written many other articles harshly critical of NAR and the industry—including an inaccurate headline related to the settlement.
NAR is also pursuing AI as part of its future. Wright herself, in fact, is attending the Chief AI Officer course at the University of Chicago to fully understand how AI can be utilized in helping to evolve the association. Her purpose in taking the course is to “understand how to make permeate throughout the organization much faster.”
In terms of the overall turmoil of the industry as of late, Wright shared a piece of wisdom she learned years ago: “Every storm eventually runs out of rain.”
“Don’t fear the change,” she said. “The more sophisticated we become, the more that we continue to be lifelong learners, the more we continue to understand what this next generation is going to need,” she said. “The more that we understand the micro- and macro- economics of the industry, the better prepared we will be.”
Wright closed out with further reassurances that NAR is “committed to regaining the trust of people around the country.”
“A person moves in the direction of his or her most dominant thoughts. An organization moves in the direction of its most dominant actions,” she concluded. “We have a lot of work to do, it’s not lost on us. To those that are open for our conversation, we’re certainly open for your continued feedback and ideas. I do believe that the entire industry will be stronger for that.”
