Inman

LendingTree founder to speak at real estate event

Doug Lebda, president and chief operating officer of IAC, will present the “Story of an Entrepreneur” at Real Estate Connect San Francisco on Aug. 2.

Lebda, one of online real estate’s most successful entrepreneurs, will tell the story of how he went from a start-up founder to a top executive within Barry Diller’s IAC, which also owns Ticketmaster, Home Shopping Network and Match.com.

The complete speaker lineup and conference program for Real Estate Connect are available online.

A previous winner of Inman News’ Innovator Award, Lebda is the founder of LendingTree, which he started in 1996 and led through the initial start-up phase, a national rollout in 1998, a successful IPO in early 2000, and its acquisition by IAC in 2003. Today, LendingTree has grown to more than $420 million in revenues, and is the anchor of IAC’s growing stable of lending companies.

Since the acquisition, Lebda has been responsible for other IAC real estate and mortgage ventures, including GetSmart.com, RealEstate.com, iNest and Domania.

Also scheduled to speak at Real Estate Connect are Rich Barton, CEO of Zillow; Alex Perriello, president and CEO of Realogy Franchise Group; Craig Newmark, customer service representative and founder of craigslist.org; Pete Flint, CEO of Trulia; Sherry Chris, COO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corp.; and more than 100 others.

Real Estate Connect, slated for Aug. 1-3 at the Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco, is where technology innovators and top brokerage executives meet for three days of networking, debate and exposure to the latest innovations in real estate. This year marks the 11th consecutive Real Estate Connect event in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Real Estate Connect SF ’07 also includes four pre-conferences: Internet Marketing Bootcamp, Connect TECH, Broker Internet Session and Bloggers Connect. Registration for all conferences runs until July 24, 2007.

To view the full Real Estate Connect program or register online, visit the conference Web site.