Robert Reffkin is the president and co-founder of Compass, a residential brokerage in New York City that launched in 2013 as Urban Compass, changing its name at the beginning of 2015.

Much of Compass' early buzz in the marketplace and its appeal to brokers hinged on in-house technology that supposedly not only cut down on administrative work but also facilitated faster reaction to listing changes and debuts. Skepticism remains, however, about just how liberating and fast Compass technology is.

What is not in dispute is that Compass has piled on big names and big assignments since its founding. Leonard Steinberg, long one of Douglas Elliman's top-performing Manhattan brokers, joined Compass in 2014 as president. Other big names include Kyle Blackmon, formerly of Brown Harris Stevens; Jay Glazer of Warburg Realty; and Gene Martinez from the Corcoran Group.

Compass investors have also included notable names, such as landlord and developer Bill Rudin and SalesForce.com founder Marc Benioff as well as institutions such as Goldman Sachs. Indeed, the brokerage's executive ranks claim quite a few banking and consultancy alums.

Reffkin himself springs from that world. He was chief of staff to the president and COO of Goldman Sachs immediately prior to co-founding Compass with Ori Allon. Before that, he worked at Lazard and McKinsey & Co.

He graduated from Columbia, and earned an MBA from there as well, and once worked as a White House Fellow in the Treasury Department. Reffkin has run nearly 50 marathons to boot, one in each state.