David Mele vs Rich Barton

David Mele

CEO of Homes.com

BIO: A 20 year media and technology veteran, Dave Mele joined Homes.com, a division of Dominion Enterprises, as the company’s president in September 2014. Mele oversees overall business strategy and day-to-day operations of Homes.com, ensuring the company continues to stand out from others in the dynamic online real estate market. With a continued focus on driving success for real estate professionals, Mele is expanding the Homes.com brand to deliver better data, higher quality leads, and best-in-class digital products and services to the real estate industry. Prior to joining Homes.com, Mele served as publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and president of Pilot Media, a diversified media company based in Norfolk, Virginia. He also served as general manager of Pilot Interactive, where he was responsible for online and digital operations including PilotOnline.com, HamptonRoads.com, online vertical marketplaces for homes, jobs, and autos, and a digital services division that delivers search engine marketing, social media and web development solutions. Mele began his career with Accenture, a global management consulting and technology services company, where he worked with a variety of Fortune 100 companies on new product development and innovation. Mele holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. He resides in Norfolk, Virginia, with his wife and two children.

Rich Barton

CEO of Zillow

BIO: Rich leads the company’s work to transform how people buy, sell, rent and finance homes. Rich co-founded Zillow in 2005 and served as CEO until 2010, when he became the company’s executive chairman. He returned as CEO in early 2019. Before Zillow, Rich founded Expedia within Microsoft in 1994 and successfully spun the company out as a public company in 1999. He served as president, CEO and board director of Expedia from 1999 until 2003. He also co-founded and served as non-executive chairman of Glassdoor from 2007 to 2018. Rich was a venture partner at Benchmark from 2005 until 2018. He’s served on many public company boards and continues to be a board director for Netflix, Qurate, Artsy, and Zillow Group. He earned a Bachelor of Science in General Engineering: Industrial Economics from Stanford University.