Nicole Canole, a sales associate with Long & Foster’s Alexandria/Kingstowne Centre Sales office in Alexandria, Virginia, has been appointed to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors’ Leadership Institute.

The NVAR Leadership Institute prepares interested members of the association for volunteer leadership roles with Realtor associations. The year-long program educates participants on the skills and knowledge they will need to take on leadership roles within a Realtor association.

“Nicole joined the Alexandria-Kingstowne office in September of 2015. In addition to this appointment, in her first full year as a Realtor Nicole has added a Maryland license to her Virginia credentials and she has gone through the full [Ninja Selling] Ninja Installation,” said Lenny Marsh, managing broker of the Alexandria-Kingstowne Centre Sales office. “She has closed 26 transactions and has already achieved great success as an agent. All of us at the Alexandria-Kingstowne Centre office are very proud of Nicole.”

Participating in the NVAR Leadership Institute will provide Canole with insight on all aspects of the Realtor organization, including at the local level, state level and the national level. It will also familiarize her with Metropolitan Regional Information Systems (MRIS), the D.C. region’s multiple listing service. Each year, approximately 12 members are chosen to participate in the NVAR Leadership Institute. They are encouraged to share their journeys of leadership and work to build relationships for future collaboration as leaders.

“I am so honored to have been chosen to take part in NVAR’s Leadership Institute,” Canole said. “This is such a fantastic opportunity to be able to further broaden my knowledge of the real estate world, and I look forward to putting the information I’m going to learn to use for the Realtor community, as well as for the real estate industry as a whole.”

Though Canole has only been a Realtor for a short time, she had previous experience that helped her transition to the industry as the owner and lead designer of NiCa Interiors, a commercial and residential interior design service. She was also the lead certified staging professional for The Staging Fashionista and is an Association of Property Scene Designers Certified Stager Pro. Prior to that, she served for eight years in the U.S. military and worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs as a financial policy analyst.

For more information about Long & Foster, visit www.LongandFoster.com.