Bret Violette - President, RealEstate.com
Bret Violette serves as the president of RealEstate.com, and is responsible for building and leveraging the company's portfolio of businesses including the RealEstate.com consumer portal; the RealEstate.com, REALTORS� local brokerage business; the national Real Estate Broker network; as well as iNest and Domania.
Violette joined RealEstate.com in 2005 to serve as senior vice president and general manager of the company's real estate brokerage business, RealEstate.com, REALTORS�. He led the successful launch and rapid expansion of the RealEstate.com, REALTORS� business into nine markets in the western United States in just over one year.
Before joining RealEstate.com, Violette was the president of Weichert Lead Network, Inc., as well as the president of Weichert Rental Network, Inc., where he was responsible for all aspects of Weichert's Internet strategy, including the company's primary Web site. Prior to that, Violette was the chief financial officer and vice president of business development for YHD Foxtons, where he was responsible for the company's financial operations, management of business development and creation of long-term strategic initiatives. Earlier in his career he was the vice president of business development at CMP Media Inc., where he oversaw the business development activities of CMP's Internet Group's 105 technology-oriented websites. He also served as the group business director for Ziff-Davis, where he oversaw all financial, administrative, and operational functions of PC Magazine, PC Week, Family PC and the Ziff-Davis Custom Publishing group, successfully developing several operational efficiencies that guided Ziff-Davis through three sales and two IPOs.
Violette has a bachelor's of science degree in finance from Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts, and earned his MBA, with distinction, from Bentley's McCallum Graduate School of Business.
Victor Vaca - Vice President of Sales, RealEstate.com, REALTORS
Victor Vaca is the vice president of the company owned real estate brokerage, RealEstate.com, REALTORS�, that currently operates in 14 markets and has more than 800 sales agents. In his role, Mr. Vaca leads all national brokerage operations as well as all centralized agent recruiting and agent training operations.
Mr. Vaca joined the Realestate.com team in 2006 as the national vice president of agent development and recruiting and was promoted to national vice president of sales. In these positions, Mr. Vaca was instrumental in launching the company into 14 new markets, he created a state-of-the-art online training platform that taught agents how to work with today's online customer, and he designed a centralized recruiting platform that was responsible for finding and hiring more that 1300 experienced sales associates.
Prior to RealEstate.com, Mr. Vaca was regional director of professional development, Carolina's Region with Coldwell Banker United, Realtors, the number one Coldwell Banker franchise in the United States. In this position, he led and developed all training and recruiting initiatives for 15 offices and over 600 sales associates across North and South Carolina. He also served as vice president of sales for the Charlotte, N.C. Ballantyne office where he led nearly 100 sales associates to a tremendous turnaround in production and profit in 2005.
Mr. Vaca has a bachelor's of science in applied psychology from Loyola University of Chicago. He also completed requisite course work in accounting and economics towards his MBA.
Dave Collins - Vice President of Sales, Broker Network
Dave Collins has served as the vice president of the Broker Network since 2004 and is responsible the overall broker network performance and growth. He manages a team of regional vice presidents who work with national real estate partners to help devise strategies for successfully working with diversified Internet-based customer volume.
As a seasoned industry veteran, Mr. Collins has developed and institutionalized best practices for serving broker network customers and closing real estate transactions. He serves as company spokesperson and industry pundit and is constantly developing and sharing trade practices with his co-workers and national real estate partners.
Before joining RealEstate.com, Mr. Collins served as the senior vice president of network services for RELO, based in Chicago, where he was responsible for growing and managing its national broker network. Prior to that, Mr. Collins was vice president of relocation for Edina Realty Home Services in Minneapolis, where he held overall operational responsibility of the division.
Mr. Collins has a bachelor's degree in business administration from National Louis University in Evanston, IL and also holds a certified relocation professional (CRP) designation.
Vince Halama - General Manager and Vice President of Sales, iNest
Vince Halama is the general manager and vice president of sales at iNest where he works directly with its customer base of more than 1,400 featured builders. In addition to his daily work with the nation's leading and largest home builders, Mr. Halama is also the general manager of the division, which has its headquarters in Chicago.
Mr. Halama has been with iNest for more than eight years and has helped the company grow from a venture capital-backed start up into a nationally recognized industry leader. During his tenure, the company has generated sales of more than 17,000 newly constructed homes, which resulted in nearly $4B in incremental sales volume for its featured builder partners. Through his efforts, iNest has grown to become the country's leading real estate broker specializing in newly constructed homes by helping builders generate incremental sales amid an increasingly competitive landscape.
Prior to this, Mr. Halama worked with Marcus Evans Inc., one of the world's leading providers and promoters of strategic conferences, professional training, sports hospitality, and online information. As vice president of sales for their Sports Marketing Group division, Mr. Halama helped the company achieve a leadership position within the sports entertainment industry.
Mr. Halama has a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and earned his MBA in entrepreneurship from DePaul University. Mr. Halama also completed The Wharton School management program "Leading the Effective Sales Force" and is a licensed real estate broker. He also enjoys being an Adjunct Professor at DePaul University where he teaches a Sales Management course for DePaul's MBA Program.
Kamelia Dianati - Vice President, Technology
Kamelia Dianati is the vice president of technology for RealEstate.com where she is responsible for all facets of the company's technology supporting multiple verticals that include a national company owned brokerage, a network of brokers, the RealEstate.com portal and a listing platform with over 2 million home listings.
Prior to her current role, Ms. Dianati was a lead developer and architect for LendingTree, LLC, RealEstate.com's parent company. In this capacity she led a highly integrated computer telephony project that decreased customer call return to less than 30 seconds. As one of the original members of the architectural group, her responsibilities included providing initial sizing, architectural guidance and design leadership on large technology related initiatives. In this role, Ms. Dianati's expertise helped lead several key technology projects such as the design, development, and deployment of a borrower-facing portal (Borrower Web) and also led the roll-out and on-going enhancements for the company's automated decision engine (ADE).
Prior to LendingTree, Ms. Dianati was a consultant and software engineer at several large organizations where, among several other projects, she deployed enterprise-wide, web based applications for call centers and medical companies.
Ms. Dianati has a bachelor's of science degree and a master's degree in electrical engineering from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she was a Cum Laude graduate. Her thesis concentrated on the development of a software-testing tool for digital circuits, including a custom database, using UNIX operating system and C programming language.
Rick Finch - Vice President, Marketing
Rick Finch is the vice president of marketing for RealEstate.com and related properties and products including iNest and Domania. In this role, Mr. Finch is responsible for driving efforts such as brand management, business development, channel marketing, lead generation and retail marketing.
Mr. Finch joined RealEstate.com in 2006 where he led the online marketing group, inside sales center, and business technology functions for the company's real estate brokerage operations, RealEstate.com, REALTORS�. Prior to joining the team, Mr. Finch worked for LendingTree, RealEstate.com's parent company, on the GetSmart� team as brand manager with a focus on enhancing and developing the GetSmart marketing strategy. Mr. Finch joined the team shortly after LendingTree acquired GetSmart from Providian Financial Services, and from that time assumed responsibility for all aspects of online marketing.
Previously, Mr. Finch was a vice president at Bank of America, where he focused on direct marketing for consumer credit cards and related consumer products. He cut his teeth in financial services at Total System Services, Inc. where he supported its largest transactional client in a variety of roles that incorporated his analytical, creative and technical talents.
Mr. Finch has bachelor's degrees in sociology and applied computer science from Columbus State University.
Greg Hanson - Vice President, Product Excellence
Greg Hanson is the vice president of product excellence for RealEstate.com and is responsible for overall product management including web site optimization and strategy, partnership technology integration, and new product development. Under his leadership the company has expanded its RealEstate.com portal to include ground-breaking features such as RealEstate.com Mobile, National Click to Call, and the addition of unique and local real estate pages that include data from over 22,000 cities from across the U.S. His fresh ideas and cutting edge innovations ensure RealEstate.com and its divisions remain powerful resources for consumers who are buying or selling a home or interested in real estate.
Before joining RealEstate.com, Mr. Hanson was CEO of GuildQuality, a company specializing in performance benchmarking for home builders, where he developed the sales and marketing strategy which resulted in increasing the average sale by over 350% and the rate of customer acquisition by over 300%.
Prior to this, Mr. Hanson served as chairman and CEO for Bullhorn, a General Electric-funded software-as-a-service company. At Bullhorn, Mr. Hanson led the company through a turnaround period from pre-revenue development to cash-flow-positive operations, while also serving as the principal product architect.
Mr. Hanson has a bachelor's of arts degree in physics from Middlebury College, and obtained dual master's degrees in architecture and structural engineering from the University of Michigan, where he also served as an adjunct lecturer at the University's Taubman College. He has published several peer reviewed papers in astronomy, co-discovered a galaxy, and won multiple academic awards in physics and architecture.