Devika Chatwani

Devika Hinali Chatwani says her displaced parents understand on a visceral level the importance of home ownership.

“Both of my parents moved to the U.K. when they were about 16, Mom from Malawi and Dad from Uganda,” says Chatwani. “My dad’s family had to leave their businesses and homes in Uganda and start in the U.K. with nothing.”

She says they stressed the importance of property ownership since Chatwani and her sister were kids: “From a young age, I considered that a milestone of financial stability and independence.”

Although she’s been exploring other areas of interest since coming to GSB, Chatwani’s upbringing and previous experience working at a home mortgage lender convinced her there should be a simpler, tech-assisted path through the confusing thicket of home buying.

Is the idea of making home buying more transparent and accessible still your focus, or did you pivot since enrolling?

It’s still one of the areas I’m interested in, but recently I’ve started thinking through a new idea with someone I met in the class. I’ve always been interested in using tech to innovate problems or industries that have historically been more manual and time-intensive. One of the things people often struggle with is finding a gift for someone. It takes a lot of time and effort to find a relevant gift, and to find a retailer that’s within your budget, and make the packaging and delivery personal. There aren’t really that many players supporting that process well. That’s something I’m keen to explore at least over the next few months to see whether it’s a viable idea.

What about the gift-giving space appeals to you?

A couple of things seem exciting. Companies have had a lot of success with AI-driven preference learning to match people with better recommendations. Spotify is a good example. But no one has really cracked that in the retail space. It’s an area where it’s important to match people with the right gifts because you’re buying for someone else and you know less about them. AI could have a really interesting use in gifting, and I don’t think anyone’s done it yet. The second thing is last-minute gifting. There have been loads of companies popping up in last-minute grocery and restaurant deliveries like DoorDash and Instacart, for example, but gifting is something people do very last-minute. Could you create a DoorDash for gifting?

Did your work at Habito sharpen your focus on the home-buying process?

That opened my eyes more to the state of the housing market in the U.K., where a third of transactions fall through. Well over 50% of consumers pay much more than they expected to in the buying and selling process because there are delays, and things pop up they weren’t expecting. That process should be much easier. Comparable transactions in other industries have been totally disrupted by new tech, but I think property is much more challenging because of regulation. I want to explore if you can solve that by changing the models of how you buy and sell homes within the realms of regulation, by reimagining the whole process. But I don’t have a good idea of how to do that yet.

Did something specific happen during your time at Habito that convinced you to focus on home mortgage lending?

It was crazy to see how many transactions fell through after how much money these people had already committed. Most customers that came to Habito were buying for residential purposes, and it was heartbreaking to see. Obviously, this is the biggest decision most people will ever make, and we saw the frustration with the process and the complexity. You have to read a hundred different articles to understand what order everything goes in. You have to get proof from the bank that you can get a mortgage, then you have to find a house, then you have to find a surveyor to do the report, you have to make sure it’s all done in the time guaranteed by the lender. It’s a ridiculous process, and it got me thinking that there surely must be a better way.

Are other players trying to address that?

Yes, but they’re limited in their scope. Opendoor and Zillow conduct an automated evaluation and give you a cash offer almost instantly, but in order to do that your house has to meet certain requirements. It has to look this way and be in a certain area. So that’s still fairly limiting. I wonder if there’s a solution that would apply to a much broader range of people and properties. Maybe you could use AI to enhance data so you can better find properties that will suit you and get all the information you need upfront so it’s less likely to fall through later in the process? Could you democratize property auctions, because in property auctions all of the information is given upfront and offers are legally binding and you know the timeline? It would be totally reimagining the process. Those are some of the things I’ve been playing around with, but I’m not sure if any of them are the perfect solution.

What’s the biggest obstacle to people looking to buy a home these days?

Rising house prices is an obvious one, especially in financial hubs like London and New York. I also think people’s lives and financial priorities look slightly different. A big part of the issue in the U.K. is the information gap. People go through multiple listing providers, but those listings never contain all of the information you need. They all look perfect online, but when you actually go there there’s always something that doesn’t fit.

What are the differences between the U.S. and the U.K.?

In the U.S., the onus is on the seller to provide all of the information you need upfront and then the offer is legally binding. But in the U.K. you make an offer without actually having all of the information, so it’s on the buyers to conduct a survey to get all of the information they need. If at that point they find out something like there’s rot in the building they either offer a lower price or they just pull out. But by then they already would have wasted a lot of money. So it’s a big financial commitment and very risky. That shouldn’t be the case. It should be much more transparent.

What attracted you to working at a big-tech company like Meta?

I wanted to do something entrepreneurial. My dad’s an entrepreneur. A lot of my family friends are entrepreneurs. I really enjoy products, and I had experience building and scaling a product at smaller companies. Meta reached out with an opportunity to be on the product strategy team, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to see what it meant to scale a product at a larger company.

What’s the most important thing you learned during that experience?

The main thing I took away was knowing what kind of leader I wanted to be. All of my supervisors did a great job of investing in their juniors and giving them the confidence and independence to succeed. They created a flat structure, and everyone on the team ran their own projects, but we did a lot of brainstorming sessions with the team. Everyone was really encouraged to share their expertise and run with things they were excited about. You could get feedback from your supervisors, but it wasn’t their responsibility to sign off. You owned it end to end. I’d never seen anything like that before.

Did you find mentors there?

I worked with amazing leaders at Meta, and a lot of them were actually ex-GSBers. My manager helped me ramp up on my first project and gave me the confidence to own my own relationships, hold my own meetings, and build up my own work. He acted more like a thought partner than a supervisor. I’d love to be able to do that for someone else.

You’ve done commissioned paintings on apparel and footwear. How did that sideline come about?

I’ve always loved art growing up. In my free time I would always be sketching or making handmade cards for my parents. It was something I really loved doing and wanted to explore. But math was really my priority. During COVID I moved home after living by myself in central London. I wanted to be closer to family, and things were much quieter at Habito because no one was buying any homes or taking out any mortgages. So I decided to either start new hobbies or pick up old hobbies. I wanted to get back into art, and I became obsessed with this idea of wearable art.

Are you still singing in a cappella groups, and what itch does that scratch in your life?

I’m part of the GSB Show this year, acting and singing a fair amount. I haven’t really done much since undergrad, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue that here. I’m not sure I do any of these very well, but it’s fun.

Any particular classes, professors, books, or experiences at the GSB that have been especially influential?

I really loved Product Launch. It’s a case-based class, so each week we looked at a new company and we explored the product strategy behind it. The instructors, Jonathan Levav and Russell Siegelman, were really outstanding, and they were able to get the founders in for classes. It was the best part of my week every week.

Photos by Elena Zhukova