Director of Learning & Development

Director of Learning & Development

Corporate Head Quarters - Houston, TX 77079

Emerge Living is the multifamily property management platform built by Disrupt Equity. We operate Class A through C and new-development communities across 20 properties and 5,000 units, serving more than 10,000 residents, with a concentration in Texas and a growing presence in additional markets. Our operating thesis is simple: disciplined execution at the property level is what produces NOI growth, resident retention, and durable investor returns.

We keep asset loads per district manager intentionally manageable so that attention is real, not theoretical. We report financials in real time, so decisions are made on facts. And we believe that employment here means more than a job — it is a chance to grow and to seize opportunity. This role exists to make that promise operationally true.

Emerge Living has grown faster than any informal, tribal approach to training can support. Today, a new leasing professional in Houston and a new leasing professional in Austin may learn the job two different ways, from two different managers, with two different standards. Property managers are promoted as excellent operators and are then expected to lead people without ever having been taught how. Our technology stack is capable of far more than most of our team members currently use it for.

The Director of Learning & Development is the single owner of fixing that. This is not a curriculum-librarian role, and it is not a compliance-tracking role. It is a performance role: you will diagnose where execution breaks down, build the training that closes the gap, deliver it credibly to people who work onsite for a living, and prove the impact in operating metrics — leasing conversion, retention, employee turnover, and internal promotion rate.

If you want to build a learning function from the ground up, own it end to end, and be measured on whether the portfolio performs better because of your work — this is that role.

In your first 12–18 months, a successful Director of Learning & Development will have moved these numbers:

• Leasing conversion. Measurable lift in lead-to-tour and tour-to-lease conversion, and improvement in mystery shop scores portfolio-wide.
• Speed to productivity. A new leasing professional, maintenance technician, or property manager reaches full productivity in materially less time than they do today, against a defined and measured ramp.
• Bench strength. A visible internal pipeline, with an increased share of property manager and assistant manager openings filled from within.
• Retention. Reduced voluntary turnover among onsite associates in their first year, and improved resident renewal rates at properties where training has been deployed.
• System fluency. Consistent, correct use of our property management and CRM platforms across every community, with fewer data-integrity exceptions and cleaner reporting.
• Standardization. One documented Emerge Living way to lease, renew, collect, turn a unit, and run a community — taught the same way in every market.

Core Responsibilities

1. Own the Learning Strategy and Architecture

• Build and own the enterprise learning strategy for Emerge Living, covering onsite roles (leasing, maintenance, assistant managers, property managers) and corporate roles (accounting, marketing, asset management, HR, shared services).
• Conduct a portfolio-wide training needs assessment, using operating data, mystery shops, resident feedback, audit findings, turnover data, and direct field observation to identify where performance breaks down.
• Define role-based competency models and career pathways for every onsite and corporate position, so team members know exactly what proficiency looks like and what the next step requires.
• Select, implement, and administer the learning management system (LMS) and support content library; own the vendor relationship, budget, and utilization reporting.
• Establish and enforce a single set of operating standards and documented playbooks in partnership with Operations, so training reinforces the way we want the work done.

2. Drive Leasing and Sales Performance

• Design and deliver a leasing and sales curriculum that raises closing ratios — including discovery, tour choreography, objection handling, urgency and closing technique, follow-up cadence, pricing and concession conversations, and telephone and digital lead handling.
• Build a mystery shop and call-audit program with scoring rubric, individual feedback loops, and targeted coaching for underperformers; hold managers accountable for follow-through.
• Coach the renewal and retention conversation with the same rigor as the new-lease conversation, including rent-increase discussions, resident objection handling, and service-recovery.
• Partner with Marketing and Revenue Management so that the message leasing teams deliver in person match the positioning, pricing strategy, and lead sources feeding the property.
• Run recurring live sales sprints — shop-and-share sessions, role-play labs, leasing competitions — that keep skill sharp between formal training events.

3. Develop Property Managers and Future Leaders

• Build a property manager development program that teaches the leadership half of the job: hiring and interviewing, onboarding a new team member, delivering feedback, performance management and documentation, delegation, conflict resolution, and holding a team accountable without burning it out.
• Teach the business half of the job as well: reading and defending a P&L, budget construction and variance explanation, delinquency and collections discipline, expense control, capital project oversight, and vendor management.
• Create an emerging-leader or "manager-in-training" track that identifies high-potential leasing professionals, assistant managers, and maintenance leads and prepares them for promotion before a vacancy appears.
• Develop and coach district managers and regional leaders on how to coach — building a multiplier layer so development does not depend solely on you.
• Partner with HR and Operations on succession planning, talent review, and calibration so promotion decisions are evidence-based.

4. Build Systems and Technology Proficiency

• Own role-based training and certification for the core operating stack — property management and accounting platform (Entrata / Yardi / RealPage or equivalent), leasing CRM, revenue management, maintenance and work-order systems, resident communication tools, and reporting dashboards.
• Translate technology capability into operating behavior: not "here is the screen," but "here is the workflow, here is the standard, here is what good data looks like, and here is why it matters to NOI."
• Champion responsible for adoption of AI and automation tools in leasing, resident communication, and back-office workflows, including practical guardrails and clear escalation to a human.
• Build quick-reference job aids, short-form video, and in-the-flow-of-work microlearning so team members can find the answer in two minutes instead of calling corporate.
• Serve as the training lead on every system implementation, upgrade, or process change, and on training for new property onboardings, acquisitions, and lease-ups.

5. Deliver in the Field, Not Just from Corporate

• Spend meaningful time at communities — observing tours, shadowing managers, listening to leasing calls, walking units and shops — so your curriculum reflects the actual job and your credibility with onsite teams is earned.
• Deliver training in the format the audience needs: in-person at the property, regional workshops, live virtual sessions, self-paced modules, and one-on-one performance coaching.
• Provide rapid, targeted intervention at underperforming or newly acquired assets, working alongside the district manager on a defined plan with a defined exit.
• Build and lead a network of internal subject-matter experts and peer trainers who extend the program's reach across markets.

6. Own Onboarding and the New Hire Ramp

• Design a structured onboarding experience for every role — first day, first week, first 30 days, first 90 days — with clear checkpoints, an assigned buddy or mentor, and a defined certification before a team member is considered fully deployed.
• Partner with Talent Acquisition and HR so that onboarding begins before day one and that hiring managers know exactly what they own in the ramp.
• Track time-to-productivity by role and market and use it as a primary program metric.

7. Measure, Report, and Prove ROI

• Build a measurement framework that goes beyond completion rates and satisfaction surveys to change behavior and