Roofstock brings on Ketan Barbaria as new CPO to boost innovation

Award-winning real estate investing marketplace adds former LifeLock and Capital One Head of Product Ketan Babaria to lead product innovation and transform real estate investing

Roofstock, a leading marketplace for investing in real estate, announced the addition of Ketan Babaria to the fintech’s leadership team as Chief Product Officer. Formerly the Head of Product for LifeLock and Capital One’s D3 incubation unit, Babaria will enhance Roofstock’s current offerings and introduce new, creative ideas to accelerate the fintech’s growth and make real estate investing radically accessible.

“Ketan built his career scaling high-growth companies and breaking new ground to multiply the impact of companies and their products. He has a unique talent for combining big-picture creativity with leadership savvy and analytical rigor to turn big ideas into reality,” said Gary Beasley, CEO and Co-Founder of Roofstock.

Babaria joins Roofstock with nearly two decades of product innovation and leadership experience at financial services and consumer companies including LifeLock (acquired by Symantec), Capital One, PayPal and eBay.

As Head of Product at LifeLock, Babaria oversaw an $800+ million product portfolio and led product innovation efforts. This included launching LifeLock’s international initiative and identity protection services. Babaria also held the position of Senior Director and Head of Product at Capital One, where he pioneered a data-driven mobile product that leveraged machine learning to offer personalized recommendations to cardholders.

“Roofstock has reached an exciting phase in our growth,” said Gregor Watson, Chairman and Co-Founder of Roofstock. “Ketan will accelerate our momentum and advance our mission to make it radically simple to build wealth with real estate.”

The fintech combines the leadership savvy and entrepreneurial visions of industry veterans Gary Beasley, Gregor Watson and Rich Ford, with a cutting edge team of product innovators, data scientists and engineers. Babaria joins the team to lead product development and reimagine the future of real estate investing for a new generation of investors.

“As a real estate investor myself, I’ve seen firsthand the inefficiencies and barriers everyday investors face. Roofstock is solving a major market inefficiency and modernizing a legacy industry with a tech-enabled marketplace unlike anything else out there. As Chief Product Officer, I plan to take a data-driven and customer-first approach to lead the product team and take Roofstock to the next level.”

— Ketan Babaria

Babaria joins Roofstock during a period of rapid innovation. The fintech made headlines in 2019 for being the first-to-market with a fractionalized investment offering in the single-family rental space, Roofstock One. With Roofstock One, accredited investors can purchase shares of fully-managed rental homes for as little as $5,000. The unique model redefines the meaning of homeownership, removes the hassles or responsibilities typically associated with direct ownership and makes property investing closer to the seamless experience of owning a stock.

“Roofstock has quickly established itself as a game-changer for real estate investors. The addition of Ketan as Chief Product Officer to the team will undoubtedly accelerate the fintech’s already extraordinary pace of innovation and growth,” said Will Kohler of Lightspeed Ventures.

Babaria earned an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley. He also has an MS in Systems Engineering from the University of Maryland and a BS in Ocean Engineering & Naval Architecture from the Indian Institute of Technology.

SOURCE Roofstock

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