Adam Doganieri – Keller Williams Realty, Inc.

Adam Doganieri never expected to work in real estate. When he started his career as an engineer at Boeing, he knew something was missing, but it took him awhile to figure out what it was.

Searching for that elusive puzzle piece, Doganieri began attending law school in the evenings. He graduated in December 2009, amid the recession following that year’s financial crisis, and job pickings in the legal profession were slim. So, he stayed at Boeing, but moved into an intellectual property licensing transactional role.

Doganieri wanted to become an in-house counsel, but opportunities to join Boeing’s legal department were extremely competitive. So, while he was able to advance within the company’s IP department, it was difficult for him to advance into a counsel-level role within the company.

Eventually, Doganieri left Boeing for a general commercial transactions counsel position with GE Aviation, and while this was the opportunity he was looking for, he still felt like something was missing from his career. A few years later, he joined PricewaterhouseCoopers as a director-level

attorney on the commercial contracting team, but things still didn’t feel quite right, and Doganieri began wondering if law was really his calling, after all.

While he was trying to figure out what was missing from his career, he began investing in residential multi-family real estate which, to his surprise, he developed an unexpected passion for.

The disaffected lawyer was searching for a way to apply his newfound interest in real estate to his next opportunity when he received a request for an interview with Keller Williams Realty Inc., the largest real estate franchise company by agent count in the world. Doganieri worried he’d go through the same routine he had with previous roles once the shine wore off—“Like ‘Groundhog Day,’” he says, referring to the classic Bill Murray comedy about a man forced to relive the same day over and over.

But he was pleasantly surprised. Here, at last, was a job that didn’t disappoint him and challenged him on a daily basis.

“I have no regrets,” Doganieri says today. “This is the best job I’ve ever had. Not just in a subject matter, day-to-day sense, but coming into the office, the folks that lead Keller Williams, most are really successful real estate investors. Just having those people around when I’m grabbing coffee or lunch in the office, having that network where I can pick their brains on different real estate opportunities, is one of the best parts of the job.”

Building the talent pipeline

Now an assistant general counsel at Keller Williams, Doganieri serves as the unofficial “tech lawyer” for his team, helping on privacy and IP issues. He also supports the Keller Successful Career Opportunities in Real Estate, or KSCORE, program, which helps people pursue a career in real estate at no cost to them.

“Keller Williams has seen that by making KSCORE available to individuals interested in pursuing a career in real estate, we tend to get agents to stick with Keller Williams once they’ve obtained their real estate license,” Doganieri says. “It’s a way for Keller Williams to grow its business and also support interested individuals looking to get into the real estate business for the first time – a true win/win.”

The program currently spans 27 states; long-term, Keller Williams hopes to expand KSCORE to all 50, plus Washington, D.C. But on the agenda in the short term is an expansion into a few additional states each year. Doganieri is helping lead the effort to ensure the program is compliant in each state it expands into.

There are also compliance requirements, sometimes at a state-by-state level, which dictate how the program can and cannot be marketed or promoted.

Legally compliant and technologically up-to-speed

His technological expertise has also come in handy on the development and enhancements of Command, a mobile app developed by Keller Williams to help its agents manage and run their real estate business more effectively and efficiently.

Doganieri handles all privacy matters related to Command seeing as Keller Williams agents around the world can enter personal information into the app. With the global privacy landscape constantly evolving, Doganieri helps the business ensure Command complies with all applicable privacy laws and regulations.

A bit of a science nerd, Doganieri earned a degree in computer engineering from Villanova University in 2005. He went on to earn his J.D. from Delaware Law School in 2009.

All told, he spent over 14 years at Boeing starting in 2005, rising from systems engineer to IP licensing manager to senior manager of IP enforcement. When he moved to GE Aviation in 2019, he took on the role of senior counsel, commercial. Then, in 2021, he became a director in the Office of the General Counsel at PwC. In September 2021, he joined Keller Williams in his current role.

“We’re helping real estate agents be successful,” Doganieri says. “The legal team here is working to shatter the stereotype of lawyers as being an obstacle to the business. We exhaust all options to find an avenue to get to ‘yes.’”

View this feature in the Vanguard Summer IV 2023 Edition here.