An ongoing challenge for me has been how to maintain and uphold a work/life balance. It takes a lot of openness, transparency and collaboration. trying to know it all, you can earn trust and credibility. If you lead with the things you know well, vs. At the same time, I’ve never let what I don’t know take away from the power I have and the perspective and knowledge I have to offer. As a leader, that's always been important to me. I went about this by allowing myself to be vulnerable and having the self-awareness to clearly admit my own knowledge gaps. For them, I had some work to do to prove why I was the right leader. Starting out, I knew that many of the people I was leading had more insider knowledge than I did. What are the key challenges you have faced as a leader? One of my most recent challenges came when taking on my current role at Quicken Loans. I enjoyed working with technology and design teams to launch products and bring new value to the market. I thought I would primarily focus on marketing but naturally gravitated towards product management – well before it was a defined discipline. Prior to that, I spent a decade at American Express.
We worked across all of United Technologies’ $100 billion business and 200,000-employee network to fundamentally change the way the company thought about software and digital technology. Before I joined Quicken Loans, I spent a couple of years at United Technologies where I was part of the founding team of their $400M “Digital Accelerator.” During my time at UTC I helped grow our team from a handful to over 100 product management, design, data science and engineering team members. We are reinventing these industries, everything from branding to consumer experience to organizational design. My team oversees products and services in those three areas, and my role is to connect them more seamlessly. Our areas of focus are the mortgage, real estate and financial services industries. We are a privately held company owned by Dan Gilbert, and our headquarters are located in the heart of downtown Detroit. What are the key milestones on your path to leadership? I’m currently leading consumer product and enterprise insights for Quicken Loans and the Rock Holdings. Lauren lives outside Detroit with her husband and two young daughters. She also holds a certificate in New Venture Strategy from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Lauren earned her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. A native Michigander, Lauren started her career with Valassis, a media and marketing services company near Detroit.
She also initiated and led a centralized team to direct staffing, investment allocation and change management to support their digital transformation. While at Amex, Lauren established an innovation team focused on incubating new products, services and lines of business. Prior to joining UTC, Lauren spent 9 years in American Express' consumer organization in roles spanning marketing, business development and digital product management. As head of product for their building systems group, Lauren and her team brought to market consumer offerings to support the future of homes, buildings and cities. Lauren grew the team from 5 to 100+ product managers, designers, data scientists and software engineers. Lauren joined Rocket in 2019 after serving on the founding leadership team of United Technologies’ Digital Accelerator in Brooklyn, NY. She leads a team of strategists, research professionals and product managers to identify and deliver innovative digital solutions across the Rocket Co. Lauren Acquista serves as Vice President of Product Strategy & Marketplace Intelligence at Rocket Companies.