Rocket CEO & marketing master Jay Farner retiring. Here’s how much he made recently.

Thirteen years after joining Rocket predecessor Quicken Loans in 1996, Jay Farner became chief marketing officer in 2009, and helped take over the mortgage world. Because Rocket is a consumer direct lender which needs mainstream brand recognition to dominate, marketing became core to its business on Jay’s watch. He helped grow volume from $29.9 billion in 2011 to $86 billion in 2017, per IMF.

As such, Jay was promoted to CEO in 2017, saw the company through its rebrand to Rocket, made Rocket a household name, oversaw its IPO, made key fintech acquisitions, and led it to its biggest mortgage volume and profitability in history — with $351 billion funded in 2021 (a record pandemic year), and $133.8 billion in 2022, per IMF.

Now after 27 years at the company, Jay is retiring June 1 and former CEO and current executive chairman Bill Emerson will take over until a permanent replacement is identified from internal and external candidates.

Rocket is one of the great brand building case studies of the modern era and that has to do with Bill, Jay, current CMO Casey Hurbis, and other longtime execs.

I’ll watch closely to see if Bill and team eventually replace Jay with an internal or external candidate.

I’ll be surprised if it’s external. Rocket has always been a tightly run, long-tenured core team, and an outsider replacement wouldn’t be unhealthy, just less characteristic than historical precedent.

As for Jay, he made $11.7m in 2019, $51.7m in 2020 (including $30.5m cash bonus, plus $15m+ in stock options), and $1.6m in 2021.

Congrats to Jay on a great run, and Bill is a stalwart operator who’ll surely make good decisions for the long-term successor.

Rocket Companies brand and team is all about the long game.