Jonathan Jeans Career Background
What is your biggest career achievement?
- My largest career achievement to date is having a very large role in the creation of Pinnacle Campus and successful merge to be a Pinnacle company. Being a part of Campus Evolution Villages beginning in January of 2017 was truly rewarding, fast forward 8 months later and the leadership team was presented with an amazing opportunity, to become Pinnacle’s official student housing arm. This opportunity would require a lot of my department and myself personally more than it ever had before. As a student company we are all things Entrata and would continue to remain that way through the transition—however Pinnacle is a full Yardi company and this presented major challenges for many departments within the broader organization that Pinnacle Campus would rely on for certain services. Departments where I had to train, modify policies, and outline new processes so that all officially successfully catered to the nuances of our student business. Here is where my Pinnacle tour and much work began to help us successfully get our company off the ground in every facet of the business. There were many sleepless nights. There were many days I forgot to eat. There were many double-booked meetings or calls on my calendar, but I never let up because the goal is always for us to be successful especially if I have anything to do with it. I was charged with a major challenge of ensuring that the overall operation didn’t skip a beat, and thankfully we didn’t. All the travels, the calls, the meetings, everything was worth it to see that Pinnacle Campus successfully came to life post the transition. If it had anything to do with our technology or systems, I answered the call and delivered. Proud of where we are and where we are going, and I never forget those beginning months as they are a reminder to me daily of how much I can push myself to the absolute max and supersede expectations. To date I continue to play such an integral role in our company—and I have been directly involved in all growth and efficiency since inception. Challenges continue to present themselves daily, thanks to my amazing team and the great experience and knowledge I’ve gained I certainly deliver. That will never change.
What is your ultimate career goal within the rental housing industry?
- My goal in our industry is to become a Chief Operating Officer of a large or growing firm. I thoroughly enjoy a combination of facets of our industry. I enjoy all things technology, operating, client reporting, client relations, and most importantly people. I've thankfully become an expert in those facets of our industry and continue to expand upon the knowledge I've gained and become even better. With this I believe are what is needed ultimately in a successful strong Chief Operating Officer. From my humble beginnings in our industry as a community ambassador at a smaller community in Clarksville, TN to now living in Dallas and working for an industry titan Pinnacle, it has been more and more clear to me that I love all things full circle within our industry. Which most COO's share similar thinking as the role is truly ingrained in multiple facets of an organization if not all.
Most importantly, with the above in mind, I absolutely love being able to positively impact people. In my current role I have the great joy of accomplishing the goal of truly seeing site teams, investors, even residents be able to accomplish goals they've set forth as a result of technology that we offer and support through my department. That is extremely rewarding. From there I also believe that a strong COO would have the same impact, while also being an executive who can help to lead our company into the future.
The ability to impact people, innovate a firm technologically, cultivate and direct the overall organization to new milestones is why I believe the role will suit me well in the future. I have learned a lot to date and have gained really great mentors. I have so much more to learn and experience and I believe with continued positive trajectory in many areas personally and professionally I will definitely accomplish this goal.
What's one rental housing trend you have your eye on?
- I'm truly a technology advocate, that's why my current role suits me well. This question presented a challenge for me, as there are so many different trends in technology that I believe could change the rental housing industry in a very strong positive way. I will stick to one.
I'm a strong believer that trends in any industry should follow, with careful research, trends of our world. As safety and security remain a huge factor to technology, with ease of use, and faster processing also remaining just as important I believe that facial recognition technology is truly on the horizon of making a major impact on our society and in turn also our industry. Additionally I believe that while it is still, for some industries, in a wave of slow adoption-- for the multifamily industry I believe ultimately it will become something that is largely adopted. While many are cautious about some of the risks that come with this technology, the desire for people especially residents to have simple every day processes become even easier is overwhelming. Simply put, why would a community want to have a 24/7 doorman or spend tons year over year for access devices/fobs when they can upgrade to facial recognition technology that would admit those persons who are actually a resident of the community and pre-submitted guests? This is just one of many different examples. Not only for ease of access, but sense of safety also. Facial recognition for society is being considered as a measure to assist with prevention of crimes, faster processing, automation of identification and so many more things that I believe are transferable to the rental housing industry.
Especially in the student housing sector where we operate by a model of "hassle free living" for our residents, I believe in many ways that facial recognition will assist greatly with that goal, especially in terms of faster processing, identification automation and access. Thinking on it even for student housing move-in's, facial recognition could potentially omit the need for long move-in day lines and key processing! Technology is certainly not without fault, and I believe facial recognition has much that will need to be considered prior to full implementation at a community. With that said, I'm a firm believer that the benefit will outweigh the cons. I envision it ultimately replacing access systems that require so much maintenance, allow for fast processing for many different student housing processes, and enhanced security for communities that ultimately adopt the technology. I look forward to bearing witness to this trend becoming one that is adopted by a majority in our society.