Michelle Mills Clement, FASAE, CAE, RCE
Michelle Mills Clement is the Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Association of REALTORS®, one of the nation’s largest local REALTOR® associations with more than 16,000 members. She brings over two decades of association and nonprofit management experience, having previously served as President and CEO of the Commercial Brokers Association in Seattle, WA, and as Executive Director of NAIOP Washington State Chapter: The Commercial Real Estate Development Association.
Michelle currently serves as Chair of the Board for Association Forum — the “association of associations” in Chicago — which provides leadership development, education and community for professionals leading trade and professional associations across the region. She is also a Fellow of ASAE: The Center for Association Excellence, an honor bestowed on less than 1% of ASAE’s membership, and a 2019 IMPACT Leadership Development Fellow through the Chicago Urban League. She was appointed to the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority Board of Directors by Mayor Lori Lightfoot and continues to serve in that capacity.
Under her leadership, the Chicago Association of REALTORS® made history by issuing a public apology acknowledging the association’s role in promoting inequality and segregation in Chicago’s housing market — an unprecedented step that has helped spark important industry dialogue and action. She also led the launch of the Chicago REALTORS® 360° Summit — the association’s first-ever diversity, equity and inclusion conference — and the Leadership Accelerator program, which mentors and prepares REALTORS® for leadership roles in the real estate industry.
Michelle previously served for nearly 18 months as a tri-chair of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) Culture Transformation Commission, helping guide efforts to enhance the association’s culture and strengthen trust, accountability and transparency for its 1.5 million members. She also served for two years on NAR’s Governance Game Changer Presidential Advisory Group and continues to serve on the NAR Fair Housing Policy Committee, demonstrating her commitment to fair housing, inclusive governance and industry advancement.
She is the author of a chapter on stakeholder engagement for Professional Practices in Association Management, published by ASAE, contributing her expertise to the leading resource for association executives nationwide. She also co-hosted the viral Texts to Table webcast with three Black association executive peers, exploring critical conversations on DEI and leadership that reached thousands across the industry.
Michelle’s leadership and advocacy have been recognized through numerous honors, including Crain’s Chicago Business “40 Under 40” (2019); five-time recipient of Chicago Agent Magazine’s Association CEO of the Year award (2018–2023); Connect CRE’s “2020 Women in Real Estate” award; twice named a Bisnow “Power Woman in Commercial Real Estate” (2021 and 2022); the Illinois REALTORS® Rhino Award, which honors bold and courageous local association leadership; and multiple appearances on the Swanepoel Power 200 list of the most powerful and influential executives in residential real estate (2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025). She was also the first African American recipient of the American Society of Association Executives’ Key Award — the highest honor for an association CEO — and was most recently inducted into the National Association of REALTORS® RPAC Hall of Fame for her outstanding commitment to REALTOR® advocacy and political engagement.
A native Chicagoan, Michelle enjoys political campaign fundraising and volunteer management. She was integral in the election of Congresswoman Robin Kelly (D-IL) and served on the Board of Trustees for Bradley University, where she is also a past president of the Black Alumni Alliance. She is an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and volunteers with CREW Chicago (Commercial Real Estate Women) and the CREW Careers Program, which introduces commercial real estate careers to girls ages 12–18 on Chicago’s West Side.
Michelle holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from Bradley University and a master’s degree in nonprofit management from DePaul University. She also earned a certificate in commercial real estate from the University of Washington and holds the Certified Association Executive (CAE) and REALTOR® Certified Executive (RCE) designations. She lives in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago with her family.