Connie Mui-Reilly Talks Powered-Up Properties

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Connie Mui-Reilly had no idea what awaited her when she walked into the gymnasium at Stony Brook University. After immigrating to the Bronx from Macau as a young girl, Mui-Reilly navigated the challenges of learning English, attending public schools, and earning a degree in psychology. As a first-generation student without the means to pursue advanced degrees and specializations, she faced increasing pressure to land a job. The annual career fair seemed like the right place to start the hunt. 

With a friend by her side and a stack of résumés clutched under her arm, Mui-Reilly moved from table to table to gather brochures, business cards, and applications. Then Mui-Reilly struck up a conversation with Joe Sabrin, who needed someone to educate employees at his growing computer-based training software company, PC Etcetera. He hired Mui-Reilly on the spot. It was 1995.

Suddenly, the new graduate found herself entering a buzzworthy industry at an exciting time. “I was fortunate to end up in tech at a pivotal moment, when computers were first going into most homes across the country,” she explains.

Mui-Reilly joined the New York company and soon started leading mock training sessions to prepare PC Etcetera’s employees to service Windows NT 3.51. Within months, she was toting rolling suitcases filled with floppy disks on and off subway platforms as she prepared new hires in the company’s satellite offices.

“Tools are only effective if people use them. There were great agent tools in place, but I had to be the evangelist and the face of technology for the company.”

Connie Mui-Reilly

Thirty years later, Mui-Reilly has established herself as a modern leader and subject matter expert known for driving innovation at the intersection of technology and real estate. She’s used emerging tools to power digital transformations, implemented new ERP systems to improve business operations, and introduced complex cybersecurity measures to maintain public trust.

Mui-Reilly’s focus on real estate technology originated in 2000, when she joined the Corcoran Group as its help desk manager. There, she not only provided tech support to real estate mogul and entrepreneur Barbara Corcoran’s growing company but also helped the group streamline operations and embrace new digital tools. This work was critical as clients took their real estate searches from the newspaper to the internet. Mui-Reilly’s team built a new company website, and as the Corcoran Group went international, they managed tech upgrades and installations at new office buildings. 

As businesses adopted smartphones, social media platforms, tablets, and other new devices, Mui-Reilly managed key tech upgrades and led a successful digital transformation to keep the Corcoran Group at the leading edge. She stayed with the company for sixteen years, going from help desk manager to director of technology services during her tenure.

In 2016, Mui-Reilly joined Douglas Elliman Real Estate (DE) to support its CTO as vice president of technology. DE’s parent company was preparing to go public. Mui-Reilly was on board to ensure internal agents learned and adopted new tools to increase productivity and maximize profits. “Tools are only effective if people use them,” she says. “There were great agent tools in place, but I had to be the evangelist and the face of technology for the company.”

After first getting to know the business, Mui-Reilly implemented a new event designed to convince real estate agents to embrace the potential emerging technologies can offer. She called it the Technology Open House.

“I was fortunate to end up in tech at a pivotal moment, when computers were first going into most homes across the country.”

Connie Mui-Reilly

In each session, participants hear from cloud computing experts, software vendors, industry partners, and others regarding how digital products and services can help them close deals and make money. The Tech Open House served as a foundation that Mui-Reilly built upon to create a robust training program.

When DE’s CTO left in 2019, Mui-Reilly served in that role on an interim basis. She launched a new company website in March 2020. Just five days later, COVID-19 stay-at-home orders forced her team to find creative ways to keep business operations going. Mui-Reilly became chief information officer and steered DE through the pandemic while simultaneously replacing outdated legacy systems with modern, cloud-based alternatives.

Today, Douglas Elliman’s digital transformation is well underway. It will take another step forward later this year when tech teams introduce a brand-new website that operates more like a lifestyle magazine. Instead of sliding filters and toggling options to organize search results, users will simply engage with the site as powerful AI tools track clicks and selections before automatically serving up curated options and catered content.

As a Chinese immigrant and as a female tech leader, Mui-Reilly is committed to advocating for other women and minorities in her field. “Tech teams are a little more diverse than they used to be, but there is plenty of opportunity to do better,” she says, pointing to the fact that some middle-tier cybersecurity jobs require five years of experience even though women had few entry-level opportunities five years ago.

Now that she makes hiring decisions and oversees others who do the same, Mui-Reilly instructs hiring managers to include DEI practices and principles in the process.

Since its inception in 1911, Douglas Elliman Real Estate has grown to include more than seven thousand employees and more than one hundred offices. The company, like its digital strategy, is in the middle of transformation. A new chairman is pushing leaders to diversify, and ancillary services should bring new opportunities for continued growth. That keeps an industry veteran like Mui-Reilly excited.

“The world of tech just never slows down,” she says. “Even after thirty years, there is always something for me to do and learn and grow.”

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