Rocket Companies, which bought Redfin last year, announced Aug. 31 that Alessio Sanfilippo has been named CEO of Redfin, effective immediately. Sanfilippo joins Redfin from Meta, where he served as vice president of Insights for Reality Labs.
The appointment comes after Redfin’s bombastic Founder and CEO Glenn Kelman departed the company back in January, and later took a role outside the industry. Sanfilippo takes over as the portal transitions to align with Rocket’s larger mortgage and housing conglomerate, and amid broad industry disruption and reorganization.
“I worked with Alessio at Intuit and saw firsthand how he combines deep analytical thinking with a real instinct for the consumer,” said Varun Krishna, CEO of Rocket Companies, in a statement. “He has spent his career using data and technology to make complex products work better for enormous audiences. Now he gets to bring that experience to Redfin and help us connect home search, brokerage, mortgage, closing and servicing into one experience.”
Reality Labs is Meta’s virtual reality company, focused on both hardware and software and creator of the Oculus Rift headset, as well as the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which allow users to film and view video from their sunglasses.
Rocket Companies acquired Redfin in July 2025, bringing together home search, real estate brokerage, mortgage origination closing and servicing capabilities. Rocket laid off 2% of its staff following the acquisition.
The FTC soon after filed suit against Zillow and Redfin over an alleged illegal anti-competitive agreement made between the two portals (struck before the acquisition). But just last week the FTC announced that Zillow has agreed to roll back much of its $100 million partnership with Redfin in the rental listing market.
Redfin will be required to restart its rental business within six months, according to the FTC, and “amend” other aspects of the agreement, but will still syndicate Zillow’s listings.
Sanfilippo brings more than 20 years of experience across product, data, analytics and technology. At Meta’s Reality Labs, he led global teams across data science, data engineering and user research and helped build and grow the market for Meta’s AI-enabled wearable glasses.
He previously led data and user research for WhatsApp, where his work helped shape the product’s U.S. growth strategy as it expanded to more than 100 million monthly active users in the country.
Prior to Meta, Sanfilippo led data and analytics at Intuit, applying AI and machine learning across products including TurboTax and QuickBooks and helping shape product vision and go-to-market strategy. He previously held leadership roles at SAP, GoSeek, Hotwire and United Airlines.
Sanfilippo also joins Redfin as a longtime customer, according to Rocket. He acknowledged that he has used the product for more than a decade and through multiple home purchases.
