Cindy Charles: Romanticizing Real Estate and Leading Hospitality at RALIA

Photo credit: Rose Napoléon

If you have ever walked into Connections by RALIA and felt that the air seemed lighter, the rooms strangely familiar, and the tour just a little bit like story time, you have probably met Cindy Charles.

We are very happy to share that Cindy heads up our Hospitality offerings at RALIA, overseeing our high touch point guest stays, supporting retreat leaders in their Human Design Hotel experiences, and the many tiny details that make people say :

“It just feels good in here.”

From the first conversations with the RALIA team, there was that funny sense of recognition. The way Cindy tells it, she walked out of her interviews with RALIA thinking how have I not known these people before. It felt familiar. It felt like home. She actually had another offer on the table, very clear, very structured, very traditional. She was asked what does your gut say. The next morning, the answer was easy.

What Cindy might not have expected was that joining a real estate company would be the start of a deep inner journey as well. At RALIA, we work a lot with Human Design and permission to do business in a way that honours feelings, intuition and difference. Cindy jokes that for years when coaches would say “listen to your inner voice” or “what is little Cindy saying” she would think I do not hear anything.

Since stepping into this building called Connections, learning about her design and working with our team, she has started to notice how intuition speaks through her body, how sensations and emotions are actually information rather than something to hide.

That landed in a big way during our Human Design Hotel launch week. After several days of hosting leaders, dinners, conversations and experiences, everyone settled into a closing sound bath. While the bowls were singing, Cindy describes a wave of gratitude and a simple clear thought. This is alignment. This is where I belong. In that moment, real estate, hospitality, personal growth and her own love of people all braided together.

If you look at her path, it makes sense. Cindy studied sociology and psychology at Concordia, thinking she would become a psychologist. Instead, she became a “professional observer of people in the wild.” She worked at the front desk of major and boutique hotels, supervised a call centre, managed a wellness studio, produced and hosted a talk show that grew from a web series to a Bell Media program, and then spent seven years building a strong career in Montreal real estate, licensed for both residential and commercial work, with deep practice in leasing and property management for investors.

At RALIA, all those threads finally sit in one place. As Hospitality Manager, Cindy oversees our guest stays upstairs, the Human Design Hotel suites, and the event space downstairs. She leads our cleaning team with a mix of heart and clear standards and is usually the one walking visitors through the building for the first time, explaining how every detail has been chosen with intention. Recently, after one tour, a guest smiled at her and said I love how you romanticize real estate. Cindy laughed. It is true. She tells the story of the building, of the people behind it, of the intentionality in every part of the building.

Her background in commercial real estate gives her a sharp sense of numbers and structure, yet she is equally at home in the softer side of the work. She often talks about how surprising it was to discover that you can do commercial real estate in a way that is deeply human, where feelings are welcome and people are not pushed aside just because a spreadsheet says they should be. She has seen the cold version of the industry.

Here, she has chosen the version where we still negotiate hard, but we do it without stepping on people.

Cindy also carries a very personal why. She has spent time visiting shelters for women, listening to stories that rarely make the news. She knows that equality is not yet a lived reality for many women and that safe housing is the difference between surviving and rebuilding. One of her long term dreams is to help RALIA create buildings that offer dignified, supportive homes for women rebuilding their lives. Same intentional energy as Connections, different type of project.

Inside the company, Cindy has become a steady centre for our cleaning team, most of whom are women navigating new lives in Montreal. She is passionate about helping them build independence, confidence and sustainable livelihoods. It is not unusual to find her talking leases with an investor one moment, then checking in with a cleaner about her kids the next, all while making sure that a guest arriving that evening will feel held from the second they walk through the door.

If you book a room, a group stay, or a gathering at our Connections building in Montreal, there is a very good chance Cindy will be the one greeting you, answering your questions and making sure it all runs smoothly. In her own words, hospitality for her is simple. Anyone who chooses to spend time in our spaces should feel that they made the right decision.

We are grateful that Cindy chose us, too. She brings professional rigor, curiosity, softness, a quick wit and a genuine love for people into every part of RALIA. She is helping us prove that hospitality can be both deeply conscious and operationally excellent and that commercial real estate can feel like a love story between people and place.