Kheyfets spent seven years as Block’s Chief Operating Officer, and prior to that, led North American growth for Tractable, a unicorn in the AI accident and disaster recovery space.
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Block, a renovation management software company, has named Julie Kheyfets its next CEO.
The company made the announcement in a Jan. 16 statement sent to Inman, which said that Block is doubling down on “its vision to build the most trusted place to plan and hire for major renovation projects.”
Kheyfets is expected to apply her expertise from years as Block’s COO, before which she was credited for establishing and leading the North American growth of Tractable, an AI platform for accident and disaster recovery. Her efforts helped Tractable become the world’s first computer vision unicorn — the term for a startup with a $1 billion or higher valuation — for financial services.
“Trustworthy information about renovating is so hard to find — but it doesn’t have to be,” Kheyfets said in the release. “The latest advances in AI make it possible to democratize access to professional renovation support — to put an AI architect in every homeowner’s pocket, empowering them to make the right choices for their home and to easily hire the right contractors.”
Block deploys a mobile and browser-based AI experience that shepherds users through the often frustrating and invasive process of home and apartment renovation projects.
It manages the most granular aspects of a project while ensuring long-term quality, shifting project scale and vendor interactions are carefully considered at each step.
The software is trained on data from a multitude of industry sources and past construction projects to curate transparent workflows, consistent communications and tight budget controls. It helps predict delays and cost overruns, alleviating the need to rely on many of the more expensive aspects of project planning, such as architects.
“By having access to Block’s vetted network of contractors, homeowners can quickly discover the right contractors for their projects, rapidly receive easy-to-compare proposals, and hire with confidence, backed by Block’s project protections,” the release stated.
Kheyfets is taking over for Koda Wang, who led Block for more than seven years as CEO and co-founder. Wang will remain on the board and transition to Executive Chair. Wang said Kheyfets is a “rare leader.”
“She is relentlessly determined and has a deeply held growth mindset to be a better leader each day,” Wang said. “Julie has played a pivotal role in developing the vision of our AI-powered renovation marketplace.”
Block is eyeing Americans’ propensity to improve their homes as a further driver of success. It cited a Federal Reserve study that found the United States has more than $35 trillion in home equity, a jump of 80 percent from 2019, and a report for the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) at Harvard University finding that U.S. home renovation spending has exceeded $470 billion.
At the same time, people are moving less, Axios reported in September.
“The share of Americans moving has reached its lowest in history — and it doesn’t look like it’s climbing back up anytime soon,” Axios said. “In the 1960s, around 1 in 5 Americans moved each year, according to the Brookings Institution. As of 2022, that’s fallen to 8.7 percent — even accounting for the pandemic-era moves out of big coastal cities and into places like the Sun Belt.”