Vikas Rao is vice president of product management at Ellie Mae, where he is responsible for creating the product strategy for Ellie Mae’s next generation of technology that powers its Encompass NG Lending Platform. Rao has designed and released the company’s Developer Connect solution, which provides access to Ellie Mae’s suite of APIs and is building LO Connect.
Rao is leading the product strategy behind Partner Connect, which will enhance market leading Ellie Mae Network, allowing lenders and partners to securely share information. In 2017, Rao participated in the Stanford University program, Stanford Ignite. This is a program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business that teaches innovators to formulate, develop and commercialize their ideas.
WHAT IS ONE THING YOU HAD TO OVERCOME TO SUCCEED IN THIS INDUSTRY?
When I started at Ellie Mae, I learned how complicated the mortgage origination space can be and how each of our customers has unique business practices and technology needs. As I worked on creating our Next Generation vision, I had to overcome not allowing today’s needs to limit the possibilities and the direction of where this industry is headed going forward. With that, I had to focus on how we provide both a great consumer experience, while offering solutions to automating everything automatable.
