Chief Operating Officer

Our client is scaling from a dominant Florida brokerage into a multi-state residential real estate platform. Expansion markets include Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Kansas City, Columbus, and Charleston.

The model is simple to say and hard to do: recruit and coach high-performing agents, feed them high-quality leads (anchored by a strong Zillow Preferred partnership), and give them the systems, technology, and AI-enabled support to serve clients at a high level.

We're hiring their first Chief Operating Officer to build the operating engine that makes that scale possible. This is a hands-on executive role in a founder-led company: you will be the CEO's operating counterpart, translating vision into execution with clear owners, timelines, and numbers.

The Role

Twelve to eighteen months in, success looks like this: the company runs on a disciplined weekly, monthly, and quarterly operating cadence with market-level scorecards and P&Ls; Zillow Preferred and lead operations are a measurable competitive advantage rather than a cost center; a repeatable market launch playbook has taken at least two new markets from entry to a defined profitability path; and agent productivity and retention are improving because the leading indicators are tracked and coached every week. AI is embedded in daily workflows — lead conversion, coaching, transaction coordination — not running as side experiments.

What You'll Own

Operating cadence and accountability

• Build and run the company operating system: annual planning, quarterly business reviews, and weekly execution rhythms across all markets and functions.
• Establish company-wide and market-level scorecards covering revenue, agent productivity, conversion, retention, and profitability — and create real accountability against them.
• Translate CEO priorities into execution plans with clear owners, timelines, and measurable outcomes.

Zillow Preferred and lead operations

• Own operational excellence across Zillow Preferred and all lead sources: speed-to-lead, routing, follow-up discipline, conversion reporting, and agent accountability.
• Build a lead operations command center tracking lead flow, conversion, agent performance, and ROI by market.
• Own execution of our lead-source partnerships while the CEO owns the strategic relationships.

Agent productivity and retention

• Build one consistent agent success model across all markets: onboarding, training, coaching, scripting, and performance improvement, in partnership with Sales Enablement.
• Identify and manage the leading indicators of agent success — speed-to-lead, appointment set rate, buyer/seller conversion, active pipeline, close rate, retention.
• Strengthen the agent value proposition that combines leads, coaching, technology, and AI support.

Market expansion

• Build a repeatable market launch playbook with defined gates: licensing, MLS access, broker structure, agent count, lead economics, and a path to contribution-margin profitability.
• Drive expansion in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Kansas City, Columbus, Charleston, and future markets; recruit or develop the market leaders who run them.

AI-enabled operations

• Partner with the CEO to turn our AI vision into practical, adopted workflows in lead conversion, agent coaching, recruiting, transaction coordination, and client communication.
• Run pilots, measure adoption and ROI, scale what works, and kill what doesn't.

As the operating foundation matures, this role will also partner with the CEO on the ancillary services roadmap (mortgage, title, insurance, home services) — building programs agents and clients actually adopt, structured from day one to comply with RESPA and state-specific requirements — and continue upgrading the leadership bench across markets, while protecting the entrepreneurial, agent-first culture that got us here.

What We're Looking For

Required

• 10 years of operating leadership in real estate, proptech, marketplaces, or multi-market technology-enabled services — with direct experience scaling a business across markets or regions.
• A track record of building operating systems: cadences, scorecards, and accountability structures that changed results, not just reported them.
• Strong data orientation; manages through KPIs and unit economics.
• Experience leading distributed or remote teams, and the executive presence to lead agents, market leaders, and partners in person. Frequent travel required.
• Comfort operating in a founder-led, entrepreneurial environment — strategic one hour, in the weeds the next.

Preferred

• Zillow Flex/Preferred, brokerage, mortgage, title, or real estate platform experience.

Experience building multi-market launch playbooks, implementing AI-enabled workflows, or creating ancillary revenue streams — including working knowledge of RESPA and affiliated business