User:Doctor knowitall

Antonio Atacan, an Entrepreneur, was born February 20, 1966 was born in Istanbul, lived in Italy and moved to the United States in 1989. He first lived in Chicago, where he met his wife, Georgine and together they relocated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. While still in school he started his career as aRealtor at Prudential. He quickly became the #1 Realtor in Philadelphia.

While at Prudential, he found that the brokerage, as with most traditional brokerages, was not geared towards entrepreneurial business people. So he explored other options, like Coldwell Banker, Re-Max, and Long & Foster. He could not find what he was looking for in a company. However, them he stumbled upon the New York Times Best Seller Millionaire Real Estate Agent written by Gary W. Keller. The author also had a real estate brokerage franchise that was very successful in the western part of the United States.

Antonio was immediately attracted to the Keller Williams business model which was "built by agents for agents" with the mission to “build careers worth having, businesses worth owning and lives worth living” for its associates. Moreover, Keller Williams operates real estate office in a non-traditional manner, rewarding agents who help the company grow in a productive manner, and uses the term "Profit Sharing" to describe this portion of their business. The company was studied by two business school professors, James N. Baron and Brian Tayan. The case study is published by Stanford University Press, and is available at Harvard Business School Press online: 1. Media:http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml;jsessionid=TOZMXIMODQ1TWAKRGWDSELQBKE0YIISW?id=HR29&referral=2340.]] The Report describes the economic and cultural models that have led to the success of Keller Williams Realty.

In 2007, Antonio opened the first Keller Williams Brokerage in Philadelphia. In addition, he started the mortgage brokerage company, Center City Mortgage and became a partner in Delaware Valley Settlment Services. In between launching companies, he developed the most comprehensive real estate data base in Philadelphia,.

As the #5 Realtor at Prudential his decision to leave and open a relatively unknown brokerage after the real estate bubble burst was considered very risky and controversial. In fact, his struggle with Prudential before, during and after his departure with their Center City employees almost ended in cival litigation for slander. However, his venture proved to pay off for him and for the agents he recruited. Because as companies like Realogy, the parent company for Coldwell banker and Century 21 teetered on the verge of bankruptcy [1] in 2008 with losses in hundreds of millions, Keller WIlliams was the most profitable [3] and fastest growing [3] franchise in the United States. Additionally, according to the 2008 J.D. Powers and Associates survey of consummers, Keller Williams was chosen to be the Best Brokerage by Buyers in all 3 categories surveyed by over 3200 particpants [5].

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/business/28norris.html