Rocket hires Venmo CTO Papanii Okai to lead product engineering efforts

Rocket Companies tapped Papanii Okai, who previously served as chief technology officer at Venmo, as its executive vice president of product engineering.

Okai’s hiring, effective Monday, is the latest in a string of hires to the Detroit-based lending company’s executive team since Varun Krishna became CEO about a year ago. Krishna has invested in artificial intelligence (AI) designed to transform the homeownership journey.

Before joining Rocket, Okai spent nearly 11 years leading technology teams at Venmo, with his last position as CTO and vice president of engineering. He also led engineering teams at PayPal, where he served more than 400 million accounts. 

At Rocket Companies, the parent entity of Rocket Mortgage, Okai will seek to build upon the company’s AI-powered products by creating new offerings and working with engineers, product managers and design teams. 

“After serving in roles from a hands-on-keyboard engineer all the way to a CTO at both startups and large international tech companies, Papanii’s technical depth and track record for building high-performing and highly engaged teams makes him a valuable asset for us at Rocket,” Shawn Malhotra, CTO of Rocket Companies, said in a statement.

Malhotra is a recent addition to the Rocket team. The former Thomson Reuters and Intel executive was named the company’s first CTO in May. Other recent hirings include Jonathan Mildenhall as chief marketing officer; Glenn McGillivray as chief people and places officer; Heather Lovier as chief operating officer; and Dan Sogorka as the general manager of wholesale arm Rocket Pro TPO. Alastair (Alex) Rampell also joined the board as a member. 

Last year, former CEOs Jay Farner and Bob Walters announced their retirements from the company. 

“The best way we can use technology is to make the path to homeownership easier, faster and more accessible. I’m looking forward to bridging the gap between technology and human experience, so people across the country, no matter where they are from, feel confident taking this life-changing step,” Okai said in a statement. 

Founded in 1985, Rocket reports that it has more than 65 million call logs per year and 10 petabytes of data. In April, it launched the patented platform Rocket Logic, which can automatically process nearly 90% of data points extracted from documents in a month. It can also reduce by 25% the number of times a professional interacts with a mortgage, the company claims.