Keller Williams Legacy Realty agents in Osceola County know a lot about entrepreneurship. Market center operations manager Ogura Gatama says many of her agents inherited it from their parents, who immigrated to the U.S. to work in Orlando's hospitality industry, overcoming language and cultural challenges along the way. Entrepreneurship, she says, has been a model for them for as long as they can remember.
At the market center, which has more than 160 agents, nearly all of Ogura’s team members are first- or second-generation immigrants. They come from more than 30 countries, and Ogura estimates that 92% of his team is Hispanic-Latino. Because Spanish is the primary language at Legacy, Ogura and his agents are on the front lines of KW Español.
The launch of KW Español demonstrates Keller Williams' commitment to helping Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs build their real estate empires across borders and language barriers. Many of KW's award-winning programs and publications are now available in Spanish, as well as select KWU courses, KW MAPS training and KW Prep. KW CHISPA (Hispanic Coalition for Progressive Action) and KWEL (KW Emprendedores Latinos) are vibrant communities committed to supporting Hispanic agents within KW. At its heart, KW Command is now available in Spanish, empowering Spanish-speaking agents to take advantage of the industry's most powerful technology platform.
Latinos are the fastest-growing demographic in the U.S., with 7.9 million Latinos under the age of 45 currently eligible for a mortgage. According to NAHREP's 2022 Hispanic Homeownership Report, Latinos currently account for 24.4% of the overall increase in homeownership, a figure that is projected to reach 70% over the next 20 years. With Latinos forming more new households than any other demographic, Ogura says catering to the needs of Latino real estate agents and their clients isn't just a diversity issue, it's a key business strategy for gaining market share. She's seen the impact firsthand.
the current,
7.9 million
Latinos can get a mortgage
Under 45 years old.
Leading by example
Ogura knows what it takes to be a successful immigrant entrepreneur. Originally from Kenya, she grew up in the town of Eldoret, where she says her culture valued limitations over achievement. But her academic and athletic talents stood out, and she was accepted into the prestigious University of Hospitality and Tourism in Nairobi. In her final year, she was selected to participate in The Walt Disney Company's International University Program, studying abroad in Orlando, a turning point in Ogura's life and career.
In the U.S., “it took time for me to adapt to the local culture and understand the nuances of daily life, which was often different from what I was used to,” Ogura says. “Though I had a good grasp of English, there was a learning curve to communicate effectively in a professional setting and understand the local accent and colloquialisms.” She also missed her connection to her home and her new environment.
In her role at Disney, Ogura was tasked with developing an orientation program for other international interns from Africa, which allowed her to bring her first-hand experience to the job, create training materials that considered language and cultural differences, and help design a program that fostered an environment of open communication and belonging.
Towards the end of the program, Ogura accepted a supervisory role in the housekeeping department of a historic hotel brand in Orlando. Within three months, she was promoted to housekeeping director, eventually leading a multicultural team of more than 200 people. Prior to her arrival, the department had suffered from high turnover. To address language and cultural differences, Ogura used her experience at Disney to develop visual aids and provide hands-on training to facilitate learning among staff and promote teamwork. She also encouraged the sharing of customs and traditions, which she says helped build a culture of mutual respect within the diverse team.
As their skills developed, Ogura guided her team members into leadership positions, helping them understand their promotion paths and where they could see themselves at higher levels within the organization. She wanted them to understand that language differences didn't dictate their potential. Her dedication had a huge impact on staff retention, and the housekeeping department received higher customer service scores year after year.
After more than a decade in the hospitality industry, Ogura was tapped to lead Target's retail division. But more than five years after joining the company, she found herself at a crossroads. Faced with a promotion and the responsibility of managing a fleet of stores with $1 billion in annual sales, Ogura found herself losing sight of her purpose in her work. Like many of the agents she now leads, she discovered an entrepreneurial spirit and wanted to find a way to give back to the family and community she left behind in Kenya.
A common language of success
In 2016, Ogura found a new path and purpose in real estate, but the transition to Market Center leadership wasn't easy. Less than a year into her new career, she was named team leader for Legacy but was initially met with resistance from her colleagues. Market Center had recently been through a lot of turnover, and the team didn't believe she was qualified for the role.
While Ogura understood their concerns, she met their challenge with her own challenge. She explained her story as an immigrant and the obstacles she had overcome to reach a leadership position. Ogura told them, “I'm not going to teach you real estate, but if you're looking for a leader who will love you, push you like you've never experienced before, and set the highest expectations of professionalism to help you make a lot of money and build a legacy for your family, I'm that leader.” She challenged her team to prove themselves for a year. They never looked back.
Ogura says that year was the hardest of her career to date. To support her team, she says, “I had to focus first on the mindset and the belief that my team members could make a lot of money and be successful.” She also realized that her agents were not reaching their full potential because they lacked the Spanish-language tools and resources they needed to grow their business to the next level.
“Firstly, we had to focus on the mindset and the belief that they could make a lot of money and be successful.”
– Ogura Gatama, Operations Director, Keller Williams Legacy Realty
She set about connecting top agents with bilingual KW MAPS coach Carlos Herran, who she credits with making a big impact. In her second year as team leader, Ogura mandated coaching for all market center associate leadership council members, and the team began developing Spanish-language materials, including presentations on buying and listing properties. They found other market centers doing the same thing, and began compiling and sharing resources across KW. Their efforts laid the foundation for KW Español.
Building and giving back
Ogura kept her promise to her team and went even further: She started by identifying three influential agents at the heart of the market and asked them to lead production.
Joel Pacheco was one of them. He had closed 33 units that year, and Ogura told him she wanted him to double and then triple his production over the next two years. Joel achieved that goal, accelerating his sales from 33 to 56 to 106 from 2017 to 2019, growing his team in the process. Other agents began to take notice. When the announcement came that Joel and his team had done more than $553,000 in GCI, Ogura says other agents were shocked and realized they could do the same. From that point on, she began to see a ripple effect throughout the market center that continues to this day. In 2023, her best-performing team closed $48 million and earned $1.3 million in GCI. Ogura says, “We were able to break the glass ceiling and change the beliefs of agents. They were able to see the possibilities.”
In 2019, just three years after becoming an agent, Ogura was presented with the opportunity to take the helm as director of operations when Legacy was acquired. Since then, she says, the language at her market centers has shifted from transaction-focused to wealth-building-focused. In addition to supporting her agents' professional development, she actively engages them in financial planning, including starting a college fund and bringing in Spanish-speaking advisors to consult on wealth-building strategies and best practices.
Ogura envisions her market center one day serving as a community center for the area's Hispanic residents, and she points out that the impact of building wealth with immigrant teams is global: “We're not just changing their lives here in the U.S.; immigrants are spending a lot of money outside of the U.S. They're not only helping their local families, but also their families back home.”
Philanthropy is at the core of Ogura’s business activities, and she describes KW as a community of “givers.” She founded Ogura’s Hope Foundation to help children in her native Kenya, and her market centers have participated in charity projects throughout Africa, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere.
That same generous spirit is behind the launch of KW Español, and Ogura credits its creation to her team and the community of Latino agents across KW, as well as members of the KWU and KWRI leadership teams, mentored by Julia LaShay Israel, KW’s head of inclusion and belonging.
“You'd be amazed at what you can accomplish as a company if you can motivate people, share a clear vision with them, and see them thrive within that vision,” Ogura says.