Phyllis Sagan takes pride in being a woman entrepreneur. The Swampscott resident single-handedly started her own real estate business more than 35 years ago. However, her charity work has always been of utmost importance to her.

After graduating from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Sagan had a short teaching career.

“I’d like to say I was tired of the kids,” Sagan joked. “They were great kids.”

Sagan quickly decided to make a career change and earned her real estate license.

Once she had gained experience working at an agency, she decided to open her own office.

“There were very few women owners at the time, but there were a couple that I followed and used them to be my idols. If they could do it, I could try,” Sagan said. “My theory has always been, ‘If you don’t take the risk, you don’t get the gain.’”

Sagan Realtors operated as a “one-woman company” for nine months, until its success garnered the attention of future employees.

In 2018, Sagan Realtors merged with Harborside Sotheby’s International Realty with the goal of strengthening its presence in Swampscott and Marblehead.

Sagan’s history of community involvement includes serving as a board member for the Aviv Center (now known as the Jeffrey & Susan Brudnick Center for Living) in Peabody and the Jewish Federation of the North Shore, chairwoman of the North Shore Advisory Board of the Anti-Defamation League, a Swampscott Rotary Club member, co-chair of the LCHC Women’s Breakfast and the North Shore Development Committee of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, and being a supporter of St. Joseph’s Food Pantry in Salem, Girls Inc., My Brother’s Table, and the Marblehead Counseling Center.

“I always say I work so that I can give back,” Sagan said. “Thank goodness I’ve been good to the community, but they’ve been very good to me.”

Sagan credited her family with instilling a charitable mindset in her. For Women’s History Month, she highlighted two state female leaders as examples of what women are capable of achieving — Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll.

“I think women are very powerful today and people realize that we work perhaps harder than anybody else,” Sagan said. “We now have a woman governor and a lieutenant governor, so we have plenty of people to emulate.”