Industry Icon Special Feature: Q&A with Joan Marcus Webb, former Chief Marketing Officer, The New Home Company

Q&A with Joan Marcus Webb,

former Chief Marketing Officer, The New Home Company

Joan Marcus Webb

Former Chief Marketing Officer, The New Home Company

“I don’t want to call it retirement because I feel too young to be retired,” said Joan Marcus Webb of her recently announced semi-retirement.

The 2019 California Housing Foundation Hall of Fame inductee, 2015 BIA Orange County Chapter president and now former Chief Marketing Officer for The New Home Company thought for a moment, then came up with an answer befitting one of the industry’s foremost marketing luminaries: “Let’s just say I believe in term limits and I reached mine. It’s time to make space for the next generation.”

She describes her career as one blessed with good fortune; having the good fortune to have three jobs – at Taylor Woodrow (now Taylor Morrison), Laing Luxury and The New Home Company – where she could have spent the rest of her career. Along the way, she touched the lives of thousands, including new homeowners who benefitted from her skills as a design studio director, then a marketing director; the many young women she mentored; and finally, the women and men who have been transformed by BIA Orange County’s Women’s Leadership Conference, which she founded as the Chapter’s president.

It could have been very different. She might still be championing human rights at Amnesty International, her first job after graduating from UCLA, or – very differently – still be working for defense contractor McDonnell Douglas, her second job. But one day an old high school friend, Lisa Stuard, called her and changed her life … and new home marketing, for that matter. Stuard’s father, Dale Stuard, a former BIAOC president and at the time president of NAHB, owned Signature Homes, and there was a job there for Joan in their in-house design studio.

“That was in 1988, and I never looked back,” Joan said. The first job she could have spent the rest of her career at was at Taylor Woodrow, where she headed the design studio for regional president Tom Redwitz. Things changed with a shake-up from London, but Redwitz soon joined Larry Webb to head John Laing Homes’ new luxury division, Laing Luxury, and Joan followed into her second never-leave job, unsuspecting that she and Webb would marry years later.

“At Laing Luxury, we were building about 100 or so amazing semi-custom production homes a year with a philosophy focused on incredible design, quality, and industry-leading customer satisfaction. Why would you ever leave a place like that?” Joan said.

The answer came when Webb pulled off the brilliantly timed sale of John Laing Homes to Dubai-based Emmar, which at the time was the world’s largest developer. “Their chairman looked at homes all over the world and appreciated more than anything else the magic of what we were doing here in Orange County,” Joan said. “He wanted to bring that to the Middle East and wanted our Laing human capital to teach his divisions how to create Irvine all over the world. Did homebuilders in Egypt want to learn from an American … who was a woman … and Jewish? In a word, no. Then one day I realized that when you have a hairdresser in Dubai, you’re spending too much time there, and that was it.” Fortunately, the third job she’d never want to leave opened up in 2009 as Webb, Redwitz, Wayne Stelmar and Joe Davis formed The New Home Company.

“We all believed we could do the best work of our lives here, and we did,” Joan said. “As Chief Marketing Officer I had input to our product offering through marketing, sales and the design studio for a company that was building homes buyers loved.”

Webb believes product design begins with the answers to three simple questions: who is the buyer, what do they want, and how much can they afford. Thoughtful consumer research is essential to product design and Webb always liked to facilitate her neighborhood focus groups herself so nothing was lost in translation. She has found that today’s desires are all about flexibility, a space that could be a Zoom classroom one day and a home management center the next. Her passion for choice and personalization through the design studio also is a big part of New Home’s product recipe and helps address any unique desires a homebuyer may want. How could someone who thrives on marketing and design walk away from that?

“It turns out you walk away from that because your life has changed, you’ve reached your term limit, and you’ve married the CEO who soon decided to transition to Executive Chairman,” Webb said. “Larry and I both decided that we didn’t get married for one of us to be at the office. Besides that, I had to figure out my golf game and how to consistently shoot under 100, so my plan was to step away in early 2020, but then the virus hit and I couldn’t leave my team during the crisis,” said Joan, who has now assumed a new semi-retired role assisting Leonard Miller, CEO of The New Home Company, with special projects. But the desire to semi-retire involved more than that. “I always believed that to be a successful marketer you have to have your finger on the pulse of everything – pop culture, technology, music, fashion, trends, media. When I was 40, I said I wouldn’t be relevant and young enough when I was 50. But then at 50 I felt like I was 40, so there was no reason to stop. But now it’s time for people like Megan Eltringham, Joy Gorey, Melanie Andrews and others that have been by my side and whom I’ve had the honor to mentor to step into their own spotlight and lead.”

Looking back on her full-time career, one of the threads weaving through it across the years is the role of women in homebuilding. “Early in my career, I remember being keenly aware of being the only or one of a few women in a room full of men. Women seemed to be accepted into some areas of our business, like marketing, H.R. and sales, and nothing else. I appreciate the history of the business, of all the fathers who taught all the sons how to swing a hammer, but to push the industry to its full potential, it was time to diversify our conference rooms and boardrooms.”

The opportunity came in 2015 when she became president of the BIAOC Chapter. Many thought it might be a very brief presidency because just as she was taking the position, her husband died in a bicycle accident. But she stayed on and, “I was surrounded with support from all my friends at BIA and the team at The New Home Company. I truly believe my ability to recover was due in large part to our industry.”

So, work on the Women’s Conference continued. “My hopes and expectations weren’t crazy,” she recalls. “I just wanted to spark a conversation with the male leaders of the industry. To do that, I had to get them into a room and offer good content. At the first conference, we had Sheryl Palmer, who was proving what women can bring to homebuilding as Chairman and CEO of Taylor Morrison, and the keynote was the first female F-14 Tomcat Fighter Pilot in the US Navy, Carey Lohrenz, author of Fearless Leadership. She was a tremendous draw for both the men and the women in our business.”

Joan’s first realization that the conference could be a game changer came out of the panel of male company and division presidents she moderated. One of the panelists, Tim Kane of MBK Homes, prepared for the role by calling all the women in his company into the lunchroom and saying, “Tell me about your experience being a woman in this industry.” “It was eye-opening for Tim and he was able to share his new insights with the audience,” Joan recalls. “Doing something like that can be a major perception changer!” As the conference continues to grow in size and significance, Joan believes it has help to shift the industry for the better. “We have more work to do, but we created the spark and the inspiration and are getting men to understand that the key to achieving greater profitability is having a more diverse company. As much as I loved leading the conference for its first five years, my belief in term limits came into play once again and I handed over the chair position to Ali Wolf, Chief Economist for Zonda. I think I left my baby in very good hands.”

While not working to provide thousands of families with new homes they love, Joan found plenty of time to lend her energy, optimism and expertise to the industry. In addition to her informal but invaluable role as mentor to so many mentees and her years of service to BIA/OC as a board member and president, she also served on the board of the California Homebuilding Foundation, rising to Chair of the Board of Trustees in 2016, the first woman to hold that position. In 2012, Joan received the B.J. Steward Achievement Award, which recognizes the invaluable contributions of women who have made a significant impact in the industry. In 2015, she received the Max C. Tipton Memorial Award, which for more than 40 years has recognized the most influential thought leaders in the Southern California homebuilding industry for marketing excellence.

Looking ahead, she and Larry still have plenty of industry supporting in their plans, starting with serving as advisors to John McManus, longtime Hanley Wood (Builder Magazine) editorial leader and homebuilding thought-leader, in his new venture, The Builder’s Daily, a daily newsletter and fully-integrated web platform. It will focus on American residential real estate development and construction and, with people like the Webbs involved, provide thoughtful, meaningful discussion around solutions to the issues the industry faces today and tomorrow.

There’s just one more question Southern California Builder had to ask Joan, the question so many in the industry share: What’s it like being married to Larry Webb? After she stopped laughing, she said, “It’s just what anyone who knows him would expect because his persona is the same at work as it is at home: Fun, energetic, sports-crazed and competitive, all wrapped up in a big hug! We had worked together for 20 years, we spoke each other’s language, we both have two daughters, and we both believe in our hearts that building homes is a noble thing to do with one’s life.

“I adore and love Larry Webb and we have this industry to thank for bringing us together. We make a great team and can’t wait to help the next generation of homebuilders take on the world!”