Meet the Leaders of

PLACE’s dynamic leadership team is composed of legendary industry standouts who work together to help the top 20% of real estate teams build big businesses, find success through nurturing others, grow their unique local brands, enhance their value propositions, save time, boost production, and increase profitability using tools, resources, models, systems, and community.

Chris Suarez and Ben Kinney co-founded PLACE in 2019, launching it in February 2020 with 41 of the top-producing teams across the United States and Canada from a wide variety of brokerage brands. Late 2021, PLACE closed its series-A round, led by Goldman Sachs, for $100 million, yielding a $1 billion valuation. The organization continues to grow with more PLACE Partners and employees on a collective mission to deliver the dream of homeownership everywhere.

Ben Kinney, Co-Founder

Ben is a businessman, real estate agent, and best-selling author. Prior to launching PLACE, Ben founded the Ben Kinney Companies, which include Brivity, ActiveRain, Kwkly, Blossor, coaching and training companies, plus mortgage, title, and escrow. Three of his companies were recently ranked in the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies in America, and he has personally trained more than 100,000 business owners via conferences, classes, and webinars.

Chris Suarez, Co-Founder

In his 20 years of experience, Chris Suarez has successfully grown multiple real estate teams across the United States and internationally. Chris has been recognized as an Inman Innovator, RISMedia Real Estate Newsmaker, and maintains a presence on the RealTrends “The Thousand” list. As co-founder of PLACE, he brings experience in real estate law, title, and sales to his teams. Chris is passionate about coaching and speaking and leads coaching, masterminding, and consulting programs. He lives this mission by traveling and creating lifelong experiences with his wife and two daughters.

Chris Stuart, President

President Chris Stuart joined PLACE from Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, where he served as President and CEO of the global real estate franchise network. Chris has an impressive track record of rapidly scaling real estate franchises while driving consumer brand and experience. During his time in the role, BHHS grew from 32,000 to more than 50,000 real estate professionals around the globe, and he oversaw the expansion of the brand globally into markets throughout Western Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the Caribbean, Canada, and Mexico.