Crain’s Chicago featured Lindsey Senn on their 2021 Class of 40 Under 40. Read the full article here. 

Lindsey Senn thought she was going to major in accounting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Then she took her first real estate class. “It was so much more interesting,” she says. Senn never looked back, stepping on a path that led her to Fifield, one of Chicago’s most prominent developers. Since joining the firm in 2013, she has worked on $575 million worth of apartment projects, playing key roles in the development of the Sinclair, a 390-unit tower in the Gold Coast, and E2, a 352-unit project in Evanston. Fifield founder and CEO Steve Fifield describes her as “a financial genius” who “doesn’t get lost in the numbers.” 

“I’m most comfortable in Excel,” Senn says. “But there’s a part of me that loves creativity and artistic things. I really like real estate because it offers a little of both.” Seeing a project from conception to reality is especially gratifying. “Putting one of these together takes an incredible amount of fortitude, hard work and overcoming obstacles,” she says. “I would be giddy like a child in a candy store just to see the project under construction.”

As a woman in an industry led mostly by men, Senn sees a role for herself to help increase the ranks of women in her field. She has been active in the University of Wisconsin’s mentorship program, encouraging young female graduates to pursue careers in development. 

Senn herself is following the path of Fifield President Erin Spears, a member of the Crain’s 40 Under 40 class of 2015.