Real Estate Webmasters has grown to over 150 employees and created a tech campus in the heart of Nanaimo. Judy Stephan interviews their new COO Kent Flint in her monthly Nanaimo Magazine Celebrity Spotlight Feature.
By Judy Stephan
We have all heard of Real Estate Webmasters (REW), with its three buildings on the Church and Chapel intersection in Downtown Nanaimo, helping drive the local economy. REW employs approximately 150 people between their local Nanaimo campus and a smaller office in Vancouver’s iconic Canada Place. But what do we know about these employees? I popped over to meet Kent Flint, REW’s Chief Operating Officer, to find out more about his work within this ground-breaking company.
Kent grew up in Peterborough, Ontario, and holds a Bachelor of Arts from Guelph and a Bachelor of Education from Brock University. Kent has many years’ experience in workforce development and human resources management, and spent nearly a decade as Vice President of HR at Tech Insights, a global company located in Ottawa.
When Kent’s parents retired to Nanaimo, he visited often with his family and quickly fell in love with island life. During one of these visits, Kent’s father showed him a clip from Dragon’s Den in which Morgan Carey presented a unique pitch for Real Estate Webmasters: instead of looking for funds, he wanted advice on building a management team. Kent knew this was his destiny. Leadership recruitment and development was his area of expertise, and he gladly moved to Nanaimo to become REW’s VP of HR in March 2016.
Not long after, Kent was promoted to Chief Operating Officer, responsible for driving the company to achieve its business goals and objectives, and guiding a leadership team that mirrors the core values of the company: always be awesome, customer success, and innovation. Kent’s own vision is to establish the right processes, platforms and practises to help REW grow further and scale with ease.
In a nutshell, Real Estate Webmasters makes websites and online technology for Realtors. The company targets the top 5% of the 1.2 million real estate agents across North America, catering to both individual agents and franchisees, and currently serves over 60,000 real estate professionals. REW helps these real estate agents establish their business presence online, get visitors to their websites, and then convert those visitors into actual clients.
Kent is married with three children who keep him very busy with their various sporting activities. An avid sports fan, he continues to cheer for his beleaguered Ottawa Senators. He loves living in the central island, with its great natural heritage and outdoor opportunities. We wish him every success with this revolutionary company right on our doorstep.