Landing Founder & CEO Bill Smith Addresses Rotary

RCB President Brenda Hackney and Rotarian Miller Beale with Rotarian Bill Smith following his presentation.

The Rotary Club of Birmingham recently welcomed Rotarian Bill Smith, Landing Founder and CEO, as its featured speaker. Smith discussed the company's digital platform that provides a network of fully furnished apartments available without hassle on any timeline to its members. He explained the idea was inspired by the evolution of services such as grocery and food delivery, travel and transportation thanks to companies like Shipt, which Smith founded and sold to Target.

“We think this is the future of apartment living,” Smith said, describing the significant amount of technology, a network of 3,000 apartment communities across the country, a line of furnishings, 500 employees and four distribution centers built to support the company’s commitment to an excellent customer experience. After starting two years ago in San Francisco and expanding into 81 markets, Landing moved its headquarters to Birmingham in 2021. “I absolutely love Birmingham and I’ve never loved Birmingham more than I love Birmingham now,” Smith said. “I find it an incredibly easy place to live and an easy place to do business.” 

Smith highlighted Birmingham Bound, the company’s new initiative that works to bring more tech companies to Birmingham and helps the companies already here continue to thrive. He also shared the lessons he implemented while building the fast-growing company. “I took some learnings from building Shipt and made some changes when building Landing. Landing is the kind of place that I want people to come and when they leave...and everybody’s going to leave us one day...my goal is for them to look back and say, ‘I grew more when I was at Landing than I did anywhere else in my career.’” 

Smith emphasized the importance of people working in person and challenged Rotarians to bring their employees back to the office. “I believe it’s critical that every company, particularly in Birmingham and particularly downtown, get their employees back in the office. It’s not just to benefit the city…it’s actually for the benefit of the employees and the company. People that are looking for a high-performing environment, they want to be with people, in person growing and developing.”