#28 - Robert Reffkin - CEO and Founder of Compass - How He Built Compass Into the Gold Standard for Real Estate Brokerages

Apr 13, 2020

Robert Reffkin @robertreffkin was raised by a single Jewish mother who was disowned from her family because Roberts father was African American.   Her entrepreneurial ethos and hustle as a real estate agent impacted Robert deeply and was ingrained in him at an early age.   Receiving his BA and MBA from Columbia set Robert on a path to career success at McKinsey, Goldman Sachs and as a White House fellow.  On a personal note he has run 50 marathons in 50 states to raise money for children living below the poverty line and is a husband and father to three young children. 

 

In 2012 he launched Compass with Ori Allon @ori.allen,  a brilliant tech engineer who has sold his previous two companies to Twitter and Google.  They started with 7 employees. Today Compass is the largest independent real estate brokerage in America with over 16,000 agents and 2,000 employees.  The best in class line up of executives and advisers include Joseph Sirosh CTO (head of AI at Microsoft), Kristen Ankerbrabdt CFO (Led technology investments at The Carlyle Group), Greg Gart CPO (launched and led Amazon Echo and Alexa) and recent board additions Eileen Murray (Co-CEO Bridgewater https://www.bridgewater.com/leadership/eileen-murray ) and Pamela Thomas-Graham (Lead Independent director on the board of The Clorox Company, Peloton and Norwegian Cruse Lines Holdings).   

 

In this episode Robert and Danny discuss Roberts life story, the lessons he’s learned a long the way and how Compass is poised to thrive and grow in these challenging times, while many brokerages will be shrinking, shuttering and looking for help to stay a float.