Katie Benson is the Chief Growth Officer for PLACE, one of the nation’s fastest-growing real estate platforms formed through the alignment of Ben Kinney and Chris Suarez. Drawing on her experience as a successful real estate agent, team leader, and coach, Katie leads the PLACE Growth Leader team, identifying talented mega teams to partner with, connecting them with a tech-enabled platform that provides business services, training, consulting, systems, proven playbooks, and tools to rapidly grow their real estate business and create additional wealth building opportunities for themselves and their team members. Katie is responsible for the full execution of the screening and selection process associated with each mega team exploring partnership with PLACE along with the development of the PLACE Growth Leader Team.

PLACE closed out 2023 w/ over 300 Mega Teams and 313M + in closed gross revenue collectively and is the largest community of top 1% teams.

Katie earned her real estate license when she was 19 and quickly became one of the top agents in Eugene, OR. In 2006, she was recruited by Keller Williams to launch the first office in Eugene. Within three years as the team leader, she had grown the office to more than 100 agents. Presented with the opportunity to take on an even bigger market in Portland, OR, Katie stepped into the team leader role and partnered with Chris Suarez to grow that office from 60 agents to more than 300. Collectively, that location closed more than $1 billion in annual sales volume, achieved #1 market share in the Portland Metro area and earned recognition as one of Keller Williams’ most profitable offices.

Katie is passionate about coaching, consulting, and accountability. In 2015, she completed training as a KW MAPS Coaching Mastery Coach and helped some of the top real estate agents in North America w/business growth and goal achievement.

Katie loves real estate and the limitless opportunities it provides. Katie teamed up with longtime friend and business partner Chris Suarez to serve as the Director of Expansion for Xperience in 2015. The organization has grown from 3 partners to over 150 partners closing out 2020 @ 25M in GCI and over 2,000 closed units (pre-PLACE merger).

Leveraging her sales experience and the insights and perspective she’s gained from a career of recruiting, coaching, and training, Katie brings to the PLACE platform energy, passion, and a relentless drive to help others succeed.