Deidre O’Connell

CEO, Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty

About a year ago Patricia Petersen, then Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty chief executive, suggested an office-sharing arrangement with Deirdre O’Connell, a possible successor. Petersen, who’d managed the company for nearly three decades, “wanted to show me how she approaches the day-to-day, how she manages,” O’Connell recalled to an interviewer. “She manages from a strategic perspective and with her heart.” In February O’Connell was named the new CEO, while Petersen has stayed on as board chairman and president. The firm, which has 27 offices in Nassau, Suffolk and Queens, expects sales this year in excess of $3.5 billion. The company said O’Connell has been instrumental in its growth and expansion over the past 10 years, since joining the company in the deal in which Daniel Gale Sotheby’s acquired her real estate agency. O’Connell started her career in employee communications for Met Life, then formed her own realty company in 2003. After selling this business to Dale Gale Sotheby’s, she came on board and initially managed the company’s Manhasset sales office, which led the network in sales for four consecutive years. In 2013 she was promoted to general sales manager with additional strategic planning responsibilities. She is a 1985 graduate of Fordham University, where she got her Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. Her immediate focus for the company, she’s told interviewers, is maintaining its culture: “It’s a little more of a challenge when you’ve been growing pretty quickly, as we have.”