What are your company’s core values and what do they mean to you? In short, it’s all about C-A-P-I-T-A-L.

Clients: Our foremost duty is to our clients; by focusing on their needs and accomplishing their goals, our success will follow.

Attitude: Our people push beyond conventional thinking, apply whatever effort is required to do the job well, and take responsibility for achieving results.

People: Our key assets are our people. Individual initiative, creativity, and entrepreneurship are encouraged and rewarded. We create opportunities for growth and development, recognize personal considerations, and invest in training and mentoring. We each bring a daily responsibility to make the Company stronger than when we joined it.

Integrity: We value our reputation for honesty, transparency, fair dealing, ethical conduct above all else. We will not compromise ethical standards. We say what we do, and do what we say.

Teamwork: We treat each other with respect, and we put the interests of the firm, clients and our investors before our own every time.

Accountability: We hold each other to high professional standards. We do not hide from our mistakes but embrace them as lessons to learn.

Leadership: We manage our business for the long-term. We do not wait and react to market conditions. We anticipate our clients’ needs and prepare for them in advance. We lead.

What sets your company culture apart from others?

Our culture is founded around honesty and transparency. We value open communication, constructive criticism, suggestions for process improvement or reaching out for support and assistance. Our team is always given a platform, an opportunity to weigh in, to make suggestions, question logic and leadership without reservation. Our employees are extensions of our brand and core values. We have an all-for-one and one-for-all attitude! This is an approach and a foundation that we encourage, support and demand. We believe in the power of utilizing all resources, especially the people around you. Jumping in to assist an employee in their project for a second opinion, or with an answer to a question pertaining to another department, or offering perspective and suggestions is extremely common.

What are some fun/unique office perks that you offer to continue your culture?

We appreciate YOU culture. We celebrate us. Whether it is a catered lunch for our company-wide meetings, a holiday potluck, or an employee celebrating a personal life event, TVC makes a conscious effort to celebrate YOU Culture.

How are you maintaining your company culture in this remote environment?

Since COVID, we have expanded our footprint to “offices” from New York to DC to California and virtually all points in-between as our employees made a seamless transition to remote working. That focus on communication and information has not stopped since. We maintained an active departmental and company schedule of meetings, had a remote ‘Top Chef’ contest, a Meme Roast Vote, and sent funny personalized cards to employees at home, celebrating our culture of communication and togetherness.

What ways does your company work to create and reinforce a positive company culture?

Our Executives all have an ‘open door’ policy and our partners meet every new hire to ensure that each department is as interconnected as the loan process itself. We also strive to eliminate red tape, bureaucracy and other barriers that keep our staff from getting things done for our customers.

What are the key aspects of your company culture? How have these changed or shifted over the years?

While change is part of what we do, our core culture never does. Success is a series of planned events. Whatever the marketplace brings us, strong core executive management makes our company nimble and effective.

Why do you think that building and maintaining a strong company culture is important?

We are in the service business. Our customers choose us not only because of the products we offer, but because of the people they deal with. Having a strong culture helps us nurture and retain our best team members and develop new ones. We want to be more than just a building or an investment opportunity – we want to be part of each other’s and our customers’ lives. All of that comes from working hard to create and maintain a consistently strong culture.

Does your company create goals that align with your culture? If so, what are they?

Our goals tend to be more focused on our company mission. Our team of experienced real estate investors is dedicated to helping other real estate investors achieve their dreams by being flexible and innovative. However, without a strong culture, we cannot achieve the growth we seek for our clients and for our company.

What activities have you held or participated in as a company? How do your employees engage?

We enrich our broader community with team-oriented events. For instance, we participate in Back to School donations and Winter Coat Drives to support those in need around our neighborhoods. We also have fun events, physical and virtual, to connect our team with one another. The more we do together, the better we will work together.

What tools do you use to incorporate communication freely between all employees? What about remote employees? (ex. Slack, ring central, etc.)

We use technology like Microsoft Teams and Zoom for daily interaction and of course email. However, we are very focused on in-person communications. Our senior leadership hosts frequent all-hands town hall meetings, which are particularly effective during this time of uncertainty and in a remote office environment.

When new employees join your team, what do you do to get them bought in to your company culture?

Like most companies, we immerse new employees in our culture right away. We introduce them and have them shadow other team members, get them involved in meetings, and introduce them to everyone during our monthly CEO all-hands meetings. The biggest thing we do is that each new employee has lunch with a member of our C-Suite. In fact, during the pandemic, we’ve still been doing that – although now it’s virtual instead of physical. This was too important to our culture to be ignored, even if we can’t be across the same table. And it’s worked!

How do you continue to keep your employees bought in to the culture that has been created?

By simply doing what we do!

What are 3-5 words that you would use to describe your company culture?

Teamwork, Integrity, Adaptability, Nimble, Focused