‘We are the apple of home ownership’

On this week’s episode of the Power House podcast: HousingWire President Diego Sanchez is joined by Varun Krishna, CEO of Rocket companies And Rocket mortgageto explore his background, Rocket’s technology-focused approach to service and retention, and the upcoming brand transformation in 2025.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. To start the episode, Krishna explores his background and how it fits into Rocket’s growth strategy.

Krishna: I grew up in technology, specifically products, and spent the first half of my career in enterprise software before moving into consumer products. I joined Rocket for a few simple reasons: there is a huge opportunity to apply technology to modernize space. I think what the new hire needs to tell people is that we are serious about technology. We are serious about transformation.

Sanchez: In addition to mortgages, under the Rocket Companies umbrella you also have home search, personal finance, and a few other businesses. What is your primary focus?

Krishna: The one thing that unites them all is that singular focus on homeownership. We want to make it easy for you to buy or sell a home, find a home and continue to live in the home.

It starts with the origination and maintenance flywheel connected – not only to help buyers get into the home, but also to service the transaction and develop ongoing, lasting relationships with our clients. It’s about investing heavily in technology, leveraging artificial intelligence, knowledge technology, machine learning and more. And it’s about creating a brand that stands for something that is sustainable.

Sanchez: Can you tell us more about your collaboration with Annaly Capital Management? Also tell us more about your service strategy.

Krishna: I want to start by saying that it is an essential part of our strategy. I think it really comes down to the basics of a long-term relationship with your customer. When you become good at something, you earn the right to make it happen for others.

In Annaly’s case, they find it important to retain their customer base. So when we provide sub-service options for them, we ensure that they can retain their customers at a higher rate. This is a great example of a win-win situation where we can serve that customer base, deliver great experiences and develop new products and services for them.

Sanchez: What’s the latest and greatest in artificial intelligence at Rocket Companies?

Krishna: I would start with an internal tool we called Synopsis. It creates meaning from unstructured data and understands things like sentiment, tone, purpose, pain points and objections. We use this to create insights that help us coach and train our bankers, customer service experts and our operational team members. This technology saves us approximately 800,000 hours annually.

To end the conversation, Krishna sheds light on the changes in Rocket Companies’ marketing leadership and brand strategies for 2025.

Krishna: We’ve brought in Jonathan Mildenhall. He was CMO at Airbnb And Coca-cola. He is one of the best marketing leaders in the world, if not the best. One of the reasons he’s here is to lead a brand transformation for Rocket. It starts with the Super Bowl. You will see a renewed value proposition and a look that resonates more deeply with our customers.

We believe we have the Apple of home ownership. And you’ll see our marketing strategy reflects that in a bold, consistent and sustainable way.