Mark Birschbach

Mark Birschbach is the senior vice president of Strategic Business, Innovation & Technology for the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR). Birschbach and his team seek to drive innovation in real estate and benefits to NAR members through strategic relationships with various business and technology players. Those relationships drive significant non-dues revenue, return on investment and cost savings to NAR members.

Looking back at 2019, Birschbach says he’s most proud of assembling a world-class team to drive the real estate industry into the future and launch several new businesses. That includes the recent expansion of NAR’s REACH technology accelerator program, led by Dave Garland and Tyler Thompson, with a new program in commercial real estate, REACH Commercial, and its first accelerator in an international market, REACH Australia. NAR also launched its Strategy and Innovation Group (led by Glenn Shimkus), including its Emerging Technology business, NAR’s Strategic Think Tank and the iOi Summit. 

“These new efforts have positioned NAR to take advantage of early-stage and global opportunities that will drive the real estate industry into the future, while reinforcing that NAR members are essential to consumers during the property-buying, -owning and -selling processes,” says Birschbach.

Birschbach has spent his 20-plus-year career in real estate, technology and finance. He joined Second Century Ventures, NAR’s strategic investment arm, in 2013 as a founding member of the REACH accelerator team. Prior to joining NAR, Birschbach was a technology entrepreneur, serving as president and COO of two real estate tech startups, and an investment banking executive at Citi.