Wendy Forsyth has served in real estate leadership roles for decades, developing a reputation as an industry veteran and a prominent voice in the brokerage industry.
After serving as chief marketing officer at eXp Realty for two years, where he helped lead the company’s brand transformation, Mr. Forsythe has now been promoted to chief operating officer at the cloud-based brokerage firm. She is also one of the real estate leaders selected to join Inman’s new advisory board.
Participate in the INMAN Intel Index Survey
Forsyth spoke with Inman about her new role, eXp’s evolving operations, the role of AI in securities support, and what she looks forward to for Inman’s next chapter.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Inman: You were recently promoted from CMO to COO at eXp Realty. What are you most proud of from your time leading marketing?
Forsyth: Since I joined eXp, we’ve completely embraced the brand through what we call brand growth. We’ve modernized the look and feel and how the eXp brand is represented in the marketplace, from colors, logos, design and aesthetics to brand messaging and how we talk about the brand.
This was very important because the energy of the brand and the energy of the brand stakeholders had to match. When we think about our agents, who are professional entrepreneurs who are high performing in the market, these two things need to align. Aligning the energies of the brand and the agency is something I am very proud of.
We also delivered some great products in terms of increasing the value proposition to agents. Canva is one of them. We were the first to bring Canva to our platform at the enterprise level, adding it to the value stack for agents. It was a big undertaking.
I’ll never forget when we deployed Canva to our agents. We did this at our big event, eXpcon, and it was like the moment Oprah got on stage and said, “You can get Canva at no extra cost.” About 6,000 of that audience were already Canva users, so they were excited.
eXp Realty has approximately 83,000 agents and now also integrates NextHome. What are your goals in the COO role and what does “agent-centric work” look like at that scale?
Just from an eXp Realty perspective, which I’m particularly focused on, we’ve always been the most agent-centric brokerage on the planet. That is our North Star.
We are currently at a major inflection point in AI, giving us the opportunity to truly drive AI in the operations of our brokerage businesses. As an intermediary, we closed 343,000 transactions last year. You can imagine the amount of work the operations team has to pay every day to all the agents involved in every transaction. It only takes a few minutes. That’s our promise.
Being human-centric while advancing AI is at the core of our operational efforts. For me, stepping into the COO role is about helping take that vision to the next level. Because we’re at this tipping point where we’re rethinking what the use of AI in brokerage looks like. It has given us a whole new world to think about what best practices are because tomorrow and today will not be the same as yesterday in our business.
The nature of competition in the brokerage industry has changed significantly. It’s no longer just a technology stack or an agent tool. There are also questions about transparency, listing controls, consumer benefits and broader industry principles. What are the current industry themes?
My philosophy is that we are at a pivotal moment in our industry and all of us in leadership need to be focused on transparency and what’s right for consumers. If you can make decisions based on that, you can get to the right place through the various decisions that need to be made in the right way.
We all run businesses. We all have a responsibility to our shareholders. We need to be responsible and competitive to our business stakeholders. We need to be competitive. That’s what business is all about. But you can be competitive and still focus on doing the right thing for your consumers. That’s how we compete every day, and that’s how we want our agents to show up and compete every day.
We will continue to do this in a very compelling way and in a way that continues to grow eXp’s market share, increase agent numbers, and grow all the KPIs that are important to the growth of our business.
Shortly after the NAR settlement, eXp introduced the form and made it available to others in the industry. From an operations perspective, do you expect eXp to follow the same path around forms, plain language, and open source resources as appropriate?
When we have a clear indication that it’s the right thing for the consumer and the right thing for the business, we always put that first in our business decisions. We make the right decisions for business and compete for business from there.
holly [Mabery] I am representing us in this week’s legislative session with NAR. We have a very strong leadership team. When you talk about the overall value proposition of your business, that leadership element is one of the things you can’t copy and paste. This is one of the things I’m most proud of as part of eXp’s leadership team. leo [Pareja] And then Holly and I, Carrie Lysenko and Seth Siegler, and of course Glenn Sanford — we’re just a team of practitioners who live and work in this industry every day.
I think our customers and distributors respect that. I got on the phone with my agent today and he said he respects the way we’ve sold properties, handled paperwork, served on committees, and worked our way up.
Pivoting to the Inman Advisory Council — how did it come together and why did you decide to join?
Inman enters a new chapter with Tom [Bohn] Appointed as new CEO. We were thrilled to have Tom in the role. I’ve been part of the Inman community for literally decades. Inman has been an important part of my career. I really value community. I value the community’s place in the industry.
When Tom made his announcement, I immediately contacted him to welcome him and introduce myself. That led to a conversation and he shared some of his thoughts and goals. Although he himself was an outsider to the industry, one thing he shared was that he wanted to bring together a group of trusted industry insiders who could be used as sounding boards to provide input and input to Inman’s leadership as they envisioned and crafted Inman’s next chapter.
He was looking for an honest person who could give his true opinion. Because that’s what you need as a leader. You need real feedback to guide and create decisions. I was honored when he asked if I would like to join. And I’m excited to be a part of that and see how Inman’s next chapter evolves.
The first advisory board meeting will be held at Inman Connect in San Diego. What ideas would you like to bring forward? What would you like Inman to cover more of, or what conversations should the industry be having right now?
There’s always a focus on vocal diversity and having as many different voices as possible as part of the conversation. I think there is a chance. Of course, there has to be a balance between communicating news to the industry, and news is often created by a select few of those voices. However, there are many great stories out there that make up for it.
In the one we run, we always publish stories about agents, so we try to find the same balance. I think that’s one of the things I want to encourage. It’s about doing a different type of storytelling about what’s going on in this industry from the ground level and field level, not just the industry news headlines.
Despite what we often hear from industry leaders and companies, at the end of the day, agents are qualified professionals, independent contractors, and risk-takers in the field. Is there anything else you would like to add about the industry, your new role, or what agents need right now?
The industry is going through a period of change, and it’s more important than ever for agents to work in a stable environment. In my new role and here at eXp, that’s one of the things we work on every day: providing stability for them.
They know they can rely on their broker to answer questions when they need us. Once you receive your commission check, you can expect to receive payment immediately. They’ll look to us to help them with these important issues happening in the industry.
It’s more important than ever. That’s what I’m excited about. I get to represent all agents every day.
Email AJ Latrace
