Neil Dholakia is leaving Keller Williams after two-and-a-half years as its chief product officer, the franchisor confirmed to Inman Wednesday, after initially denying the executive had left the company.
“During his time with us, [Dholakia] has proven to be an invaluable leader, driving our products forward in alignment with our vision,” Keller Williams spokesperson Darryl Frost said in a statement. “We owe him a debt of gratitude and wish him the best in his next endeavor.”
Neil Dholakia| Photo credit: Keller Williams
“Going forward, we remain in business for agents,” Frost continued. “And, it’s through a strong partnership, via KW Labs, we’re building the technology that empowers them to provide the best consumer experience.”
Frost did not immediately confirm if Dholakia was fired or resigned.
“We don’t disclose details on personnel decisions publicly,” Frost said.
Inman first learned that Dholakia was leaving from a source with knowledge of the decision on November 7. Inman had also heard Miguel Bracchini, Keller Williams’ vice president of product, was leaving the company from the same source.
Keller Williams President Josh Team initially denied the exits, telling Inman the company had no churn in the past six to nine months in the product division.
Miguel Bracchini | Photo credit: Keller Williams
Nearly three weeks later, however, a source told Inman that Dholakia had officially left the company on November 27 and, again, a spokesperson for Keller Williams denied the claim, saying nothing had changed since the first conversation with Team earlier in the month.
When asked about the discrepancies on Wednesday and why Keller Williams had denied that Dholakia left the company on November 27, a spokesperson said discussions were still ongoing regarding his departure.
In February 2019, Keller Williams debuted Command, its artificial intelligence-powered customer relationship management tool (CRM). In the third quarter of 2019, Command had roughly 99,875 active users, an increase of nearly 40,000 users from the end of the second quarter. The adoption rate for the platform is at 61.5 percent for the company. At the end of the third quarter, associates had entered more than 39 million contacts.
In August, the company released KW Marketplace, its proprietary “app store,” into the general KW Labs community, which allows agents to begin using the platform in its testing phase. Keller Williams has also been announcing some high profile integrations into Command, including DocuSign, dotloop and Brivity.
But absent so far from the company’s tech roadmap is the deployment of its new consumer-facing experience, including a website and app, which the company also previewed back in February.
Dholakia’s departure comes as Keller Williams deploys its tech platform while working to increase agent adoption but before the company released the consumer-facing fruits of its technology push.
It also bookends a year that saw major turnover in the c-suite, with Keller Williams founder Gary Keller re-taking the reigns as CEO and Team ascending to the role of president.
Editor’s note: This story has been edited since its publication.
