Agents

Guy Gal (yes, that is his real name) the CEO and Co-Founder of Side, the only real estate brokerage that exclusively partners with top producing agents to create, grow, and power their businesses. Prior to Side, he founded three successful companies—Kingmaker, Biz, and Kognitive. A tech entrepreneur, innovator, and angel investor, Guy is an advisor to Vidyard, a YCombinator top 100 company, and was also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Matrix Partners. Today, Guy is dedicated to transforming the best real estate agents into market-leading businesses. He believes that the future of real estate is local, boutique, specialized, and agent-owned.

Edward Wu is a successful tech entrepreneur, and CTO and Co-Founder at Side. He heads up the product and engineering team, developing and implementing best-in-class, proprietary agent and broker technology solutions. His goal is to help agents streamline processes and save time so they’re able to focus on high-value facetime with clients. Prior to Side, Ed was the Co-Founder at Vidyard, an online video platform for businesses. He holds a BS in Information Systems Science from Salve Regina University and is a proud alumnus of Silicon Valley startup incubator, Y Combinator.

As Side’s Chief Broker Officer and Co-Founder, Hilary Saunders knows firsthand the growing pains associated with opening your own brokerage. Following a successful career in real estate litigation, Hilary leveraged her customer-service focused nature working as a Broker Associate with Coldwell Banker. In 2012, her entrepreneurial spirit led her to open a boutique brokerage in San Francisco, as well as a law firm focused on estate planning and real estate transactions. Hilary holds BA degrees in Communications, German, and Accounting from the University of San Diego; and JD and L.L.M. Taxation degrees from Golden Gate University. At Side, Hilary’s mission is to ensure all Side partner agents have access to top-tier customer service, business management, legal, and brokerage teams to accelerate their success.

As Side’s Chief Revenue Officer, Darren Johnson oversees the sales, marketing and agent success organizations, ensuring alignment for the go-to-market organization. With over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and e-commerce sales leadership, Darren brings a track record of building great teams and delivering scalable, process-driven growth. Prior to Side, he was Chief Revenue Officer at Bloomreach, where he grew the firm’s revenue to > $60 million ARR while being responsible for sales, customer success, sales development and the partner channel. He has also held senior leadership sales roles at Adobe, Omniture and ATG. Darren has a BS in Economics from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Elizabeth Tse is Chief Operating Officer at Side, where she oversees customer launch, brokerage operations, people operations and IT. Prior to Side, Elizabeth was SVP, Operations at Upwork for 7 years, responsible for trust & safety, customer success, global payments, and customer support. She also served as a COO for Samasource, a non-profit that provides online work to women and youth in Africa and South Asia. Previously, Elizabeth was VP of Global Billing, Payments, and Collections at eBay and held senior positions at Zuora and Providian Financial (now JP Morgan Chase). Elizabeth holds an MBA from Cornell University and a BA in Psychology from Yale University.

Kristopher Taylor is a Bay Area executive known for scaling high-growth technology companies. An expert in working with venture-backed businesses, Kris has raised over $200 million in growth capital. His experience prior to Side includes leadership roles at successful start-ups including Boomtrain, Jibe, and Bonobos, each of which were acquired. Kris holds a BA in Accounting from Butler University. In his free time, you’ll find him cooking, frequenting his favorite Sonoma wine clubs, traveling, or tackling home renovation projects. Kris is also a four-time AIDS LifeCycle participant and has two golden retrievers (Lizzie and Davey) who frequent our San Francisco headquarters.

A veteran technology sales executive, Bryan Smith brings a track record of success in emerging business and startup environments to his role as VP of Partnerships at Side, where he heads up the Ambassador team. Prior to Side, he built and scaled a successful sales organization (from three representatives to over 170 sales, service, and business development employees) at LoopNet, the #1 online marketplace for commercial real estate. While there, he was also instrumental in growing revenues from $3MM to $90MM+, and played a pivotal role in a rare double-exit event (IPO and acquisition). In addition to a passion for leadership, Bryan’s interests include investing, consulting, advising, teaching, and coaching youth sports. Bryan holds a BS in Economics from Santa Clara University.

A Bay Area tech veteran, Ryan Smith brings more than 20 years of product and software engineering experience to his role of leading the engineering team at Side. Prior to Side, Ryan was VP of Software Engineering at LendingClub, where he was responsible for the borrower side of their platform and helped grow their engineering team 4x in his first two years. Ryan has also held previous engineering leadership roles in diverse industries, including Salesforce, PayPal and Cisco. Ryan holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Jai Kohli is an experienced customer success leader, bringing over 15 years of combined experience in technology, real estate and finance. At Side, Jai oversees all customer-facing teams, post-launch. Prior to Side, he led customer success at Rentlytics, a leading BI platform for the multifamily industry, which was acquired by RealPage. Earlier in his career, he helped build a successful commercial real estate brokerage before working in the private equity industry, on the acquisition or development of over $1 billion in institutional real estate. Jai has an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and a BA in Political Science from UC Berkeley. He is an avid wine collector and cook, and lives in the SF Bay Area.

Katherine is a Silicon Valley product management veteran with over two decades experience developing beloved SaaS offerings. As VP of Product at Side, Katherine leads the product management and design teams, ensuring Side offers the best agent and broker technology solutions in the industry. Prior to Side, Katherine led product at Khan Academy, where she helped them scale to serve 19 million learners. Previously at Intuit, she held several product leadership roles focused on delighting small businesses and growing QuickBooks to a billion dollar business. Katherine holds an MBA from Harvard University and a BA from Stanford University.

With over 20 years of experience building and scaling complex multifaceted operations in start-ups, Al Youn deeply understands the complexities of customer onboarding. He specializes in optimizing business processes, driving cross-functional alignment, and utilizing data-driven decision making to transform operations into a significant competitive advantage for organizations. Prior to Side, Al served as the VP of Operations at Homesuite, Spoonrocket, and Lifefactory. He was also a founding member of BackShield. Al has an MBA from the Wharton School, and a BA in Economics from Cornell University.

Jake Lyman is a seasoned operations leader who brings over 20 years of experience managing brokerage and technology processes, and real estate teams. At Side, he’s focused on building an efficient, scalable brokerage operations team that can meet the needs of a growing transaction pipeline. He began his career at ZipRealty, an early pioneer in the online brokerage space, and led Product Operations at ZapLabs (a Realogy-owned company) prior to joining Side. Jake holds a BA in Anthropology from the University of Colorado Boulder. A lifelong resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, Jake lives in the East Bay with his family.

Respected real estate industry veteran, Cathy Treviño, brings over 23 years of experience to her role as Managing Broker of Texas for Side. In her role, Cathy supports partner agents in establishing, growing and developing their own boutique agencies, and oversees partnership expansion. Prior to Side, Cathy managed two of the largest brokerages in Houston. An active member of the real estate community, she serves as a Regional Vice President and Vice-Chair for Risk Reduction for Texas REALTORS®, Chair for Risk Management and Vice-Chair for Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) and as a Board Director for National Association of Realtors (NAR). Cathy also holds designations as a Certified International Property Specialist (CIPS), Texas Realtor Leadership Professional (TRLP), At Home With Diversity (AHWD) and Short Sale and Foreclosure Residential Specialist (SFR).

As the Managing Broker of Florida and VP of Florida Operations, Donnie leverages 28 years of real estate experience to help Side partner agents establish, grow and develop their own local boutique brands. Prior to Side, he founded ISG Asia, home to Florida’s largest Mandarin-speaking sales team. Donnie currently serves as a National Board Member at AREAA, the largest Asian trade association nationwide, with over 17,000 members. He is the Co-Chair of the 2020 AREAA National Convention, and he previously served as Vice President at AREAA Global. Early in his career, he created Ocean Insiders, a luxury brand that serves Fisher Island, where he facilitated over 5,000 island transactions. Donnie holds an MBA from the University of Miami.

As Managing Broker of Northern California, Casey McLoedis focused on supporting Side’s Northern California expansion efforts by providing managerial support and regulatory guidance to partner agents in the area. Prior to joining Side, Casey served as the Sales Manager of two top-performing offices at one of the largest independent real estate companies in the Sacramento region. An active leader with the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.), Casey serves as the 2020 Region 3 Chair and is a member of the Legislative and Federal Committees. In the past, he also served in C.A.R.’s Transaction and Regulatory Committee, Business and Technology Forum, and as a region representative of the Standard Forms Committee. As a NAR Director, Casey is heavily involved in several RPAC Committees, and is a member of the 2020 NAR Leadership Academy.

Spencer Krull is the Managing Broker of Southern California for Side. With over 17 years of experience as a licensed real estate agent, broker, trainer and coach, he brings unparalleled local expertise to his role of supporting Side’s elite Southern California brands and partner agents. Known for his ability to understand and navigate the nuances of complicated deals, Spencer previously served as the General Manager of ultra-luxury brokerage, Westside Estate Agency, where he oversaw their Beverly Hills and Malibu offices. He holds a BS degree in Radio/Television/Film Writing from Northwestern University.