Mark Birschbach

Senior Vice President, Strategic Business Innovation & Technology

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Mark is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Business, Innovation & Technology (SBIT) for the National Association of REALTORS®. 

Mark and his team drive innovation in real estate and benefits to NAR members through strategic relationships with a broad range of business and technology players around the globe.  Those strategic relationships drive significant non-dues revenue, return on investment, and cost savings to NAR members.

Mark is responsible for managing NAR's tech investment portfolio through Second Century Ventures, the most active investor in real estate technology; and the award-winning REACH technology accelerator, the first global accelerator focused on technology in real estate across borders and segments, with operations in the US (including residential and commercial programs), Australia, Canada and the UK.  SCV and REACH own equity in over 150+ companies that impact the businesses of over 600,000 real estate practitioners on an annual basis.

Mark leads NAR's strategy and innovation efforts through NAR's Emerging Technology group that identifies and researches emerging technologies and their potential impact on real estate; NAR's Innovation, Opportunity, and Investment (iOi) Summit, a dynamic annual conference that brings together innovators, capital investors, and leaders in the real estate community to identify and create opportunities among the groups and drive innovation in real estate; NAR's Strategic Think Tank, a group of world class, cross-industry business leaders and innovators that meet multiple times each year to share business and innovation ideas and trends across industries; NAR's Big Tech Initiatives: team that creates relationships with large cap tech companies and collaborates on technology and innovation ideas that can impact the future real estate industry.

Mark also leads NAR's Realtor Benefits® Program with over 30 partners that provide significant cost savings and drive non-dues revenue to NAR; NAR's top-level domain businesses including .realtor and .realestate; NAR's products business (REALTOR store), Right Tools, Right Now and MVP programs; manages NAR's relationship with Move Inc., operator of Realtor.com; and manages other strategic projects and businesses for NAR.

Mark previously held the position of Vice President, Strategic Investments, for NAR and was responsible for managing Second Century Ventures, REACH, and other NAR investments.

Prior to joining NAR, Mark was a technology entrepreneur, serving as President and COO of two real estate tech startups. Prior to his startup experience, Mark was a Vice President in Investment Banking at Citi where he led transaction teams during the execution of M&A and capital markets transactions across a broad range of industries including a significant focus on technology, media and telecom.

Mark is active in the entrepreneurial and technology communities serving as an advisor and consultant to several start-up companies. Mark received a BBA from the University of Notre Dame.