JC: That’s a tough move for a Jersey guy — is Jersey calling you back, or are you Seattle for life?

JH: I think we’re Seattle for life. We love it.

JC: You don’t come from an accounting background — you’ve taken on varied roles at Zillow. Do you think that’s been important to how you operate as CFO today?

JH: I think so. I started in M&A, then took on partnerships, capital markets, investor relations — and ultimately finance overall. The company’s gone through a significant transition in those eight years. That blend of strategy, operations, and finance ended up being a really good fit for the role.

JC: And when you became CFO — was that something you were being groomed for?

JH: The CFO before me, Allen Parker, was in the seat from 2018 through mid-2023. Around 2020 it was communicated to me, “At some point Allen will move on, and you’ll become the CFO.” So I started taking on more responsibility in a pretty regimented way. Looking back, it was incredibly thoughtful. Rich Barton, Lloyd Frink, Jeremy Wacksman, Allen – they all had conversations around how to develop me so I’d be ready when the time came.

JC: Anything you’d do differently about that transition?

JH: Not much. It’s a hard seat generally, but I felt like I had the best possible start — I knew the company, the team, the business. It made that first year a lot more comfortable than it could’ve been.

“You can’t add value if you don’t have the basics down. Once your team has that discipline, you can start solving bigger strategic problems.” — Jeremy Hofmann, CFO, Zillow

The New CFO Mandate

JC: You start with the basics — closing the books, getting through audits — but today’s CFO can do a lot more. How do you think about where the finance function can have the most impact?

JH: First and foremost you have to have the basics down really well, and that comes with having a good team. When I took over as CFO in May 2023, we already had great accounting and finance functions. Being public for twelve years, we had that discipline built in.
Once you have that, you can start to do more. My team’s lens is both strategy and finance. We ask: Can you solve your stakeholders’ problems? That’s how we think about adding value — being a shared service that’s not just compliance-oriented, but actually a strategic value-add.

JC: Do you think you earn the right to have that broader mandate by starting with the basics, or did your varied background help?

JH: It’s both. Our team had built trust over years. And my prior roles gave me a lens that wasn’t just finance — it was strategy and operations too. So I came into the seat already viewed that way, and that naturally puts you in more rooms than the traditional CFO.

JC: We’ve seen so many companies shift from “growth at all costs” to balancing growth and profitability. How did that cultural shift play out at Zillow?

JH: We’re still going through it. About 65-70% of the real estate audience in the U.S. engages with Zillow. The term “Zillow” is Googled more often than “real estate.” But now the question is: how do we help that audience with more of their transactions?

We made a lot of investments in 2022 and 2023, even as the housing market was down. That wasn’t popular, but we knew it was the right long-term call. Then, in mid-2023, we said: “We’ve forward invested — now it’s time to grow with discipline.”

We segmented our cost base — fixed, variable, and marketing. Marketing flexes with opportunity, variable grows with demand, but fixed stays flat. That discipline lets us expand margins while keeping growth in the low-to-mid teens. [Editor’s note: per Zillow’s updated guidance, Zillow now expects mid-teens revenue growth for the full year 2025.)

JC: So that’s where the “growth with discipline” mantra really becomes cultural?

JH: Exactly. We spend a lot of time explaining why this matters — to employees, not just shareholders. I host offsites and all-hands regularly. People want to understand the why. I always say, somewhat jokingly, “We went from eight LaCroix flavors to four.” It’s a small example, but it signals focus.

The Finance Team as Strategic Partner

JC: You’ve talked a lot about partnership — winning trust across functions. How do you do that in practice?

JH: The simplest answer is really good people. But beyond that, it’s about how we show up. We lead with a partnership mindset. Our “what” is driving revenue and managing cost, but our “how” is low ego, Zillow-first, problem-solving.

At a tech company, designers and engineers think differently than finance folks. You have to explain your “why.” If you show up as a problem solver, not a logjam, you win credibility. People want to feel like you’re in the boat with them.

JC: Are there structural things you do to reinforce that — town halls, metrics sharing?

JH: All of the above. Our team manages the company’s “Level One Metrics” — the ten or twelve that really drive performance. We built a living portal where employees can see those metrics and drill deeper. That transparency is critical in a distributed environment.

“If you show up as a problem solver, not a logjam, you win credibility. People want to feel like you’re in the boat with them.” — Jeremy Hofmann

JC: Zillow is now operating with a “Cloud HQ” model — that sounds like a big shift.

JH: It was. Pre-COVID, we were mostly in Seattle. Now we’re fully distributed. You can live anywhere in the U.S. and come together for offsites quarterly or semi-annually. That’s been great for recruiting… our applications per job are up at least 4x from pre-pandemic.

But cohesion doesn’t happen automatically. We invest heavily in bringing people together — offsites, monthly lunch and learns, “10-on-1s” where anyone can sign up to talk about career goals. I just finished one last week — and pride in the company is as high as it’s ever been, even in a tough housing market.

On AI and the Future of Finance

JC: What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing right now – not so much as a business, but just you personally? What’s keeping you up at night?

JH: From a functional perspective, I feel like we’re at a pretty good spot. As a leadership team, we’re thinking about where we can find supercharged efforts from the AI work. The tooling is starting to get there – inevitably, the first place folks went were product, engineering, marketing, design…a lot of the tools were built there. But I’m now starting to see more and more influx of tools that I actually think can be helpful for us on the FP&A front or on the auditing front – places that weren’t being built for a couple of years ago.

Particularly in an environment where we’re trying to stay flat on headcount within our fixed cost base, but also grow revenue, we’re going to need to get more and more productivity out of the same number of people. I think these AI tools can do that, but that takes a pretty concerted effort. And the finance-specific tools aren’t exactly the ones that work best for the engineer.

JC: How are you surfacing those and coming up with what works and what doesn’t? Is there a mandate from the top, or do you find it bubbling up more organically, from the bottom?

JH: There’s a bit of both. We definitely have folks who are seeing tools work on the front lines. But probably more importantly, there’s a mandate to my leaders and to myself to get out, get to conferences, get talking to peers, and start to understand what’s out there. Because again – some things are specific things to our company, but not everything is. There are a lot of tools that can travel across multiple companies, and the best way to learn is to go actually chat with folks.

JC: Are you seeing the internal team build many of these tools themselves – whether it be Replit or any other of these AI tools? Or is it still external vendors that are solving the need?

JH: For the company, we’re definitely starting to build things internally, but I wouldn’t say for finance specifically. Our co-founder, Lloyd Frink, builds his Replits – to give you a sense for how hard we’re pushing internally, it starts with him. And then, from a finance perspective, we have an Enterprise license with OpenAI and ChatGPT. We use Glean internally. And we’re starting to see more and more of these third party vendors coming.

Navigating the Public Markets

JC: You mentioned earlier the weight of being a public-company CFO. How do you manage that pressure day to day?

JH: You wear the stock price more than you think. I’ve learned to coach myself to stay level. You’re not going to win or lose the day with investors based on one magical quarter. It’s about being consistent and intellectually honest.

Earlier this year, when the stock moved five percent in a day, I joked, “I don’t feel five percent dumber or smarter today.” You have to take the long view.

JC: Do you try to insulate yourself from the stock price internally?

JH: We don’t talk about it much. Zillow went public in 2011 at $60 million in revenue; we’re now at $2.2 billion. We’ve grown up in the public markets. The discipline of quarterly check-ins — having to explain your progress to people who’ve invested in you — that’s a good thing.

“You’re not going to win or lose the day with investors based on one magical quarter. It’s about being consistent and intellectually honest.” — Jeremy Hofmann

Advice for CFOs Building Teams

JC: You’ve emphasized team a lot. What advice would you give to other CFOs building out their function?

JH: Spend time with your peers. Get out and really network. The CFO job can be lonely, but it’s also remarkably similar across companies. Every time I talk to another CFO, I learn something.

Even if you’re not hiring, dedicate a few hours a week to conversations. People see the CFO title and they want to talk — use that. Auditors, law firms, investment banks — they’re all great connective tissue.

JC: And that goes for your team too?

JH: Definitely. Even directors or VPs should build those networks. The best learning happens through conversations.

As far as other advice, I’d say to stay as level as possible. The highs and lows can be extreme — especially in a public company. But consistency is what builds credibility.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.