Rocket Mortgage Parent Appoints Former Venmo Exec Papanii Okai To Lead AI-Driven Products

On Monday, Rocket Companies RKT, a fintech platform company including mortgage, real estate, and other financial service businesses, named former Venmo Chief Technology Officer and former PayPal technology executive Papanii Okai as the Executive Vice President (EVP) of Product Engineering, effective October 7.

Venmo is a subsidiary of PayPal Holdings Inc PYPL. Venmo is a mobile payment service founded in 2009 and owned by PayPal since 2013.

Also Read: Mortgage Rates Drop To 2-Year Low, Refinancing Hits ‘Fastest Pace’ Since 2022: Rocket, LendingTree Among Movers.

Okai will work to create AI-driven products at an even greater velocity in this newly created role.

Okai’s hiring is the latest in a string of executive team additions since Varun Krishna became CEO about a year ago. Krishna has invested in artificial intelligence (AI) to transform the homeownership journey.

Before joining Rocket, Okai spent nearly 11 years leading technology teams at Venmo, with his last position as Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering.

He led the technology and engineering teams that built and scaled products used by Venmo’s 90 million users. He also led engineering teams at PayPal, serving over 400 million accounts. 

Okai will collaborate closely with engineers, product managers and design teams to build upon Rocket’s AI-powered products. His leadership will ensure that Rocket continues to deliver technically advanced, client-focused solutions that drive innovation and efficiency at every stage of the home buying process.

The company says with more than 65 million call logs each year and 10 petabytes of data, Rocket Companies is well positioned to be the destination for AI-fueled homeownership.

Price Action: RKT stock is up 1.03% at $17.69 at the last check on Tuesday.

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