The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff

CEO, Zillow Inc.

Few chief executives thrive on exposure as much as Zillows Spencer Rascoff. The company that reveals online the value of every home encourages openness and sharing in its own offices through an open floor plan, so that even Rascoff is always available for ideas and queries. Work can be done better and more efficiently by just walking across the floor to talk to someone face to face, he declares.

Customers have access to Rascoff as well through his active posting on social media, an example Zillows 1,170 worldwide employees (750 in Seattle) are encouraged to follow. Zillow was also the first publicly traded company to conduct an earnings call partly through Twitter. I get valuable insight into how Zillow is used, Rascoff says, and that translates into developments that continually adapt to best serve our users.

In nine years, the former investment banker and cofounder of Hotwire has guided Zillow through numerous market shoals, a stunningly successful IPO in 2011 and several acquisitions. With the $3.5 billion purchase of rival Trulia, Rascoff notes, We will be adding another excellent consumer brand that will allow us to reach a bigger audience, estimated at more than 130 million unique monthly visitors.