Anne Marie DeCatsye, Esq., has served as chief executive officer of Canopy Realtor® Association since February 1, 2001. Canopy Realtor® Association operates and manages Canopy MLS, Canopy Real Estate Institute and Canopy Housing Foundation. The Association is instrumental in advancing the mission and vision of Canopy Housing Foundation, the charitable arm of the Association. Prior to her appointment as CEO, she was general counsel for the Association for seven months. From 1995-2000, she served as deputy executive director for our own Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition, known as REBIC, helping to elevate our voice across multiple shareholder groups. In addition to a bachelor’s in English and philosophy from Creighton University, DeCatsye earned a law degree from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., while working full-time on Capitol Hill.
DeCatsye has received numerous awards and recognition, including being named one of Charlotte’s Most Admired CEOs in 2019 and 2022 by the Charlotte Business Journal. In 2009, she was awarded the Charlotte Business Journal’s Women in Business Award and recognized by The Mecklenburg Times as one of Charlotte’s Most Influential Women. Early in her career, she was recognized by the Charlotte Business Journal in 2021 as one of Charlotte’s 40 under 40. She has been honored in the industry by RISMedia as a 2022 Real Estate Newsmaker in the “Crusaders” category and named one of the most powerful people in real estate since 2018, in the Swanepoel Power 200 report.
DeCatsye currently serves on the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) Legal Action Committee. She previously served on the Council of MLSs Board of Directors, the NAR Board of Directors representing large regional MLSs, the NAR Association Executives Committee (AEC), the MLS Executive Advisory Group to the NAR Leadership Team, the NAR AE Strategic Actions Committee, and several other NAR committees, including the NAR Housing Summit, Governance Presidential Advisory Group, and the Risk Management Committee. She also served as chair of the MLS Executives Forum.
Locally, she serves on the UNC-Charlotte Childress Klein Center for Real Estate (CKCRE) Advisory Board, leading them to develop a multi-year benchmarking study on the State of Housing in Charlotte utilizing Canopy MLS data. Her work with the Advisory Board has been instrumental in connecting local government leadership and the private sector in conversations regarding Charlotte’s lack of affordable housing. She also serves on the Board of Advisors for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a non-profit working to make economic equality a reality with a focus on creating stability for communities, families, and residents. Previously, she served on the Executive Committee of the Housing Charlotte 2007 Implementation Committee and was co-chair of the Incentive-Based Inclusionary Housing Policies Subcommittee.
Nationally, DeCatsye serves on the Realtor.com MLS Advisory Board, the MLS GRID Board of Managers as corporate secretary, and represents Canopy MLS on the MLS Roundtable, an industry thought-leadership group. She was recently appointed to the Broker Public Portal (BPP) Board of Managers, a collaborative venture between real estate brokerages and MLSs.
Anne Marie is often sought out by local and national media to comment on the Charlotte regional housing market regarding issues impacting the industry, and is a popular and respected speaker, having been invited to share her expertise on numerous industry panels.
She is married to her best friend, John, and enjoys spending time with her daughter, Kate, and loves to travel. Her email signature line best summarizes her priorities: Mom, Wife, and CEO, with a reminder that wearing sun screen can save a life.