Rebecca Jensen knows it’s good to generate ideas but understands it takes discipline to listen to how those ideas are received.

As president and CEO of Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), Jensen is highly attuned to the needs of her subscribers: the 45,000-plus Realtors in Illinois and surrounding states that use MRED’s MLS service.

“I have intentionally created a strong feedback loop between what my subscribers want and what MRED ultimately delivers,” she says. And she makes changes based on that feedback.

MRED recently launched several new products for subscribers, including a public records platform (Realist), a new mobile app (Zenlist), fresh continuing education classes and improvements to connectMLS. These improvements provide more functionality to support real estate teams and additional enhancements for private listings. The organization also hired a team of software engineers to create even more products for subscribers. It’s preparing to launch Paragon, its third MLS search platform, and hired data engineers to help teams make more data-driven decisions.

MRED has automated many of its operational product usage reports. It uses Tableau Business Intelligence Software from Salesforce to help create visualizations to aid in analyzing market information more effectively. What’s more, its award-winning help desk continues to receive high praise from Realtors. “Calls are answered in an average of 36 seconds and we have an impressive 97.66% first-call resolution rate,” Jensen says. During the past year, MRED merged its training and outreach departments and focused on creating even more on-demand training videos for subscribers.

Jensen began her career 26 years ago, working her way up from a contract trainer to CEO at the local MLS in Salt Lake City while earning undergraduate and graduate degrees from Westminster University and graduating summa cum laude. She relocated to Lisle, Illinois, in 2015 when she became MRED’s CEO and remains grateful for the mentors who encouraged and coached her along the way.