10 Questions with Hometap's Director of Business Operations

As Director of Business Operations, Brendan works cross-functionally to spearhead the strategy and implementation of cross-functional product launches, annual planning, and more, ensuring that everything moves seamlessly and effectively.

CAREER HISTORY / BACKGROUND

Q1: What’s the biggest challenge you face as Director of Business Operations?

The biggest challenge that I face as Director of Business Operations is that I am very rarely the subject matter expert in the meetings I run or facilitate. Outside of our Operating Planning meetings, I’m usually working with people across the business to solve problems. It took me a while to get comfortable with this — often, you feel like you bring value when you have the answers to questions or can get things done on your own. I’ve learned that value also comes in the form of building relationships, knowing how to get the right people in a room (or Zoom), frame a problem, figure out how you’re going to solve it, and then implement that solution.

Q2: What’s the most rewarding part of the role?

Business Operations is a unique function in that I have the opportunity to work with someone in almost every function at Hometap. We use Objectives and Key Results as our goal-setting framework at Hometap, and we have corresponding initiatives that capture the corresponding work to be done to achieve our Objectives. One of the biggest parts of Business Operations is working with employees across all functions to identify our Objectives during annual planning, and then working with them throughout the year to do the work and progress against our Objectives and achieve our Key Results. The most rewarding part of my role is listening to the teams at our Quarterly Business Review when they share all the exciting progress they have made — it’s great to hear from so many different people and celebrate the hard work everyone has done over the quarter.

Q3: How do you stay apprised of the most current news in the industry? What are you reading, listening to, or watching?

I love podcasts; I have a few that I listen to regularly and I am always looking for recommendations from friends or coworkers. Each morning, I start my day by walking my dog, Brooks, and listening to the WSJ “What’s News” podcast. The two other podcasts I listen to religiously are “All–In” and “Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy.” For books, I just finished The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger and am now reading Chip War by Chris Miller.

Q4: What’s the best advice that you’ve received during your career?

“If you think about strategy and execution as the opposite ends of a spectrum, usually people fall on one side or the other — but the best people can do both.” I had one of my first managers tell me this, and it’s shaped how I’ve thought about career opportunities and the roles I’ve taken. One of the reasons I love Business Operations is because there is work on both ends of the spectrum, so I can continue to grow both my strategic abilities and follow through on executing against the strategic decisions we make.

AT HOMETAP

Q5: What led you to Hometap and appealed to you about your initial role here and the company?

I spent the first part of my career working at larger companies (Dell Technologies and adidas Group – specifically the Reebok brand). I learned a ton from both places working in roles across business operations, finance and strategy. Adidas was divesting Reebok and I worked a lot on the sale, which provided a natural time to reflect on what I wanted to do in my career. I realized I wanted to go somewhere and build a function and be a part of building a company – Hometap was a perfect fit. I also had a college friend who was working at Hometap, so I was following the company, and the day we finalized the buyer for Reebok, Hometap posted the Director of Business Operations role and it felt like fate.

Q6: What’s something you wish members of other teams within Hometap understood about your role as Director of Business Operations or the work that you do specifically?

We love feedback. We are always working on ways to improve our operating model and how we work at Hometap. I much prefer immediate, unfiltered feedback over sending out a survey. The goal is for Business Operations to be a partner to the organization, and I want the culture of the team to be one where people are comfortable sharing feedback with us. The feedback conversations help build relationships and then give us insights that we can use to improve in the future.

Q7: If you could trade jobs with anyone else at Hometap for a week, what position would it be?

Dan Burnett or Amy Lin on our Investor Product Strategy team. I’m lucky that I get to work with them, but the knowledge they have about what investors want and then translating that into how we can create a product that helps homeowners achieve their goals is so interesting. They also work on super complex problems, so to further develop the analytical horsepower that they have would be an added bonus.

Q8: What’s one quality someone needs to be successful at Hometap?

To be successful at Hometap, you need to be comfortable with the phrase “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” We are doing a lot of things for the first time and we’re not going to be perfect right away. Often, the best way to get to “perfect” is to start at good and then iterate and optimize based on the learnings you gather along the way.

OFFICE CULTURE

Q9: What qualities do you look for in a company’s office culture?

As I’ve mentioned, a lot of Business Operations is working together with people from different functions — having a space to get together in person and work on some of our biggest problems is super helpful. I love how we have an in-person collaborative space to do this, but also have the flexibility to work from home.

Q10: What are the best and worst parts of working from home?

The best part is getting the time that would be spent commuting back in your day. The worst part is if you’re not purposeful about it, you can end up spending the whole day in the same room and lose track of time. Having a dog is helpful though because he needs to be let out and walked. I’m also lucky that my wife works predominantly from home as well, so there’s someone to have in-person human interactions with throughout the day.