His parents enrolled him in elementary school at the Mirrer Yeshivah before sending him to mesivta at Yeshiva of Far Rockaway and Lev Avraham in Eretz Yisrael, where he met his current business partner, Abraham Bergman. “He wasn’t a top-of-the-class student,” Mrs. Zlotowitz remembers, “but he was good in math — he was always able to calculate figures in his head.”

By age 19, Ira applied his abundant initiative and energy to founding the Masmid Govoha program, in which boys earn points for their hours spent learning, redeemable for prizes. “A lot of people get ideas like that, but they just fizzle out,” says Gedaliah Zlotowitz. “But Yisroel always had a vision of doing things for the klal, and when he has an idea, he sees it through. A few years after starting it, he brought in Rabbi Dovid Newman to help run the project and Masmid Govoha became a nationwide program.”

Twenty years later, the program is still thriving, with 2,700 boys enrolled and regular announcements in the Yated Ne’eman.

“If someone had given me more motivation like that, maybe I would’ve stuck it out longer in learning myself,” Ira admits.

He always knew he wanted to be in business, but had grown up with strong yeshivish hashkafos and was determined to marry a wife who shared that outlook. Hence, he says with a smile, “I took a legal loophole. I got married at age 20 when I got back from Israel, and spent one year in kollel before going out to work.” His marriage to Rochi Maybloom of Flatbush turned out to be the greatest decision ever: “I couldn’t do any of what I do without my wife’s support,” he says. “My father jokes that I’m the only bochur he knows who’s married. It’s because she takes such terrific care of the home front that I’m able to accomplish all the rest.”

He still learns the daf yomi, and opted to live in Lakewood with his family because he feels the Torahdig environment is beneficial for the chinuch of his kids. “I like learning,” he avers. “I was just unable to sit still all day.” He maintains a weekly learning session with Rabbi Yissocher Frand, whom he met years ago at a Pesach hotel — “back when most people still knew me as Yisroel” — and remains close to Rabbi Ahron Kaufman of Waterbury.

The Mortgage Biz

Ira Zlotowitz’s first job opportunity, at age 21, was as a mortgage broker with Meridian Capital LLC, a highly successful commercial real estate brokerage company based in Battery Park. At that time, Meridian was still, in his words, “a small shop.” “I was their 12th hire,” he says. He arrived with no previous experience, but was a quick study. Before long he had convinced Meridian to open a division called TeleMeridian, organizing teams to cold-call real estate owners whose mortgages were coming due (a first for the commercial mortgage business).

His second chiddush was to compose his teams in ways that took the best advantage of their different talents. Most brokerage firms expect brokers to cover all aspects of a deal, from finding the clients to structuring the agreement and closing it. But most people only really shine at one aspect of the process. “There should be a system, a person for every stage in the game, like an assembly line,” he explained to his bosses. “The person who is great at making cold calls is probably not also great at structuring deals. It’s key to be able to let one person open the door and then know when he should step aside to let others work out the deal.”

When Zlotowitz joined Meridian, the company had finished the previous year closing $300 million in loans. With the innovations he introduced, he soon became their top broker, outside of the partners; just four years later, the company closed loans totaling over $2 billion.

He left in 2001 to open Eastern Union Funding with Abraham Bergman, his partner. They started with a four-person office in Brooklyn and then opened a branch in Silver Spring, Maryland, finding a niche in the market for property owners in the small-to-middle-range group. In an August 2014 interview with the New York Times, Zlotowitz explained that clients who own fewer than 10 to 15 buildings and spend under $50 million per transaction often weren’t being serviced properly by the banks (most very large developers have their own direct relationships).

His next brainstorm was to harness computer technology to the mortgage business. He spent $1 million building a proprietary database that tracks when mortgages come due and helps brokers customize mortgage products for their clients. The software aids in identifying banks that specialize in particular kinds of loans, and allows clients to track their deals. The brokers can access the database when on the road and offer more accurate quotes to clients.

Eastern Union grew phenomenally. According to Crain’s, it expanded 253 percent between 2010 and 2013; this year, Inc. magazine anointed Eastern Union the fastest-growing commercial real estate brokerage in the US, with nearly $3 billion in deals. Last spring, the company moved its Lakewood headquarters a few miles beyond the city limits to a more spacious, attractive space in Howell, still maintaining satellite offices in Brooklyn, Monsey, Bethesda, and Jerusalem.

According to Mrs. Rothstein, the climate at Eastern Union’s headquarters is warm, high-spirited, and familial. “Ira has this crazy high energy, and everybody else just jumps in,” she says. “We don’t stop except for Shabbos. Just about everybody is frum, and when anybody has a simchah, e-mails go out to the entire company. There’s a lot of cooperation among employees — brokers will e-mail each other for help finding the right products for clients.”

Mrs. Rothstein admits that things aren’t always sweetness and light in the mortgage business. There can be a lot of stress before a deal is clinched. Sometimes brokers put in many hours of time and effort, only to have it fall through or have the client back out of the purchase at the last minute. “We only make money if the deal closes,” she points out. “When that happens, it would certainly be an opportunity to feel down, but Ira never shows resentment or signs of being upset. I think it’s because he has tremendous bitachon.”

“I’m not always successful,” Zlotowitz avows frankly. “For example, I lost money investing in a tech company to produce the software for other businesses besides my own — I should’ve made it just for Eastern Union. But I see everything as a learning experience, and because I treat people with respect, I find that even when they don’t end up doing a deal with me right away, they often come back at a later time.”

Zlotowitz told Mishpacha he believes successful businesspeople have the right combination of passion and a plan for success; mazel grows out of the right hishtadlus in the same way a prize rosebush can only bloom if planted and tended well. Mrs. Rothstein sees his success a little differently: “Aside from being a genius with real estate and numbers, he’s a very humble person,” she says. “People trust him.”

A Way with Workers

Mishpacha’s interview with Mr. Zlotowitz took place at the Bottom Line Marketing Group’s 2014 Winning Edge Business Conference, where he expounded on his approach to hiring, maximizing, and retaining good employees. “My father told me, ‘When you start a company, there should be nothing in the office you can’t do yourself. This not only makes you familiar with the entire working of the company, but sensitizes you to the employees,’ ” he says. Today he’s proud to say he’s done every job in his business, from data entry to telemarketing to underwriting, structuring, and closing mortgage deals.

Many employers naturally seek to hire people similar to themselves, but Zlotowitz says that’s a mistake — the employee is there to round out the missing pieces in the company’s skill set. As in a marriage, complementary halves often make a better team than carbon copies, as long as both people share common goals. When Zlotowitz decided to take on his CEO, he chose Avrom Forman, whom he says “shares the same vision and work ethic as I do, but brings different strengths to the table. He’s a great manager and communicator, and very good at accounting and spreadsheets and analyzing all the fine print. I can do that stuff, but it would make me crazy to do it day in and day out.”

“Make it whole” is Ira’s HR motto. Within the company, he’ll pair employees with complementary strengths — a salesman who’s great at opening doors and creating relationships (but can’t say no) with a partner who’s able to shepherd the deal to a firm conclusion.

“You can go to sales training and learn the lines, but in the end you still have to be you,” he maintains. “The line your friend uses to sweet-talk a cop might end up in four tickets for you.”

He doesn’t subscribe to the idea that people should work hard to overcome their weak spots; he’d rather have his employees be up-front about them so they can outsource what they aren’t good at and play to their strengths. “Don’t waste time fixing your weaknesses,” he advises. “Polish your strengths, and make the best better. Let somebody else handle what you’re not good at.”

Even a CEO isn’t perfect, no matter how much money he makes. When Zlotowitz began taking tennis lessons (now slim, he lost 110 pounds using a lap band, and took up exercise in the process), he once went for a lesson and saw one of the top players in the country on the courts with a trainer. Observing their session, he realized even the top players need a coach.

(An aside on the lap band: Ira was convinced to try one after a family member successfully lost weight that way. “Three of us in our family did the band,” he relates, joking, “We call it a three-man band.” He loves the results, calling it “the greatest thing in the world.” But he says what really pushed him to address his weight problem was the moment a client told him: “You know, people tend to shy away from fat people. You’d do more business if you lost the extra weight.”)

In the same way tasks should be individually tailored, Zlotowitz tailors incentives. “I used to do one-size-fits-all incentives,” he says. “But now I see it’s better to customize them to each person’s needs. For one employee that might be a better office chair. For another person it might be a double computer screen. Instead of me telling them what I think they need, I ask them what they think they need, so they feel they were heard.” (He invokes Rav Pam’s take on marital spats: “It’s not what you said to your spouse that matters. It’s what your spouse heard you say.”) But he also expects employees to show greater productivity upon receiving their perks.

He recently ran an incentive program he’d come across in a book, in which company employees are rewarded for submitting ideas to make the company better or more efficient. Zlotowitz bought 200 gift cards for $25 apiece, offering them in exchange for any idea that could improve the company. “You might get 50 ideas that are dumb, but you’ll get some that are very good. You only need one really great idea to make it all worthwhile,” he says. The initial $5,000 outlay is cheaper than hiring an outside consultant to come spend hours evaluating the company, which could easily run up bills of $20,000 to $30,000.

Zlotowitz sincerely believes that “employees aren’t an expense, they’re an investment.” For example, a good executive assistant can triple an executive’s productivity by freeing him up to do what he does best. “If she makes $25 an hour, and his time is worth $100 an hour, then for every hour of work she takes off of him he gains $75,” he says.

Similarly, he asked his brokers: If you had someone to drive you around, so that you could work in the car, how much more money could you make? “They all got drivers” he says. “They found they could make calls from the car and look things up, and the money they invested was worth it in the volume of deals they could make.”

He has also learned the value of cultivating loyalty. Within a couple of years of opening Eastern Union, he hired about 110 people, with only ten on salary and the rest on commission. But eventually he realized that keeping people on a freelance basis doesn’t buy their loyalty; they won’t be making enough to live on, and will always have their eyes open for better opportunities. Today he still has about 110 employees, but now about half are salaried employees, and feel personally invested in his enterprise.

“Yes, the rainmaker is worth the most in a company, because the company’s survival depends on him,” he says. “But after that, it’s the people the rainmaker depends on who are worth a lot. The rest are replaceable parts.”

Within the chain of command, the company is only as strong as its weakest link. “The most important person is the receptionist” he declares. “After that, the next most important person is the assistant to whichever executive your client is trying to reach.”

A receptionist is the face of the company, and she has to be loyal — a disgruntled receptionist could spill company secrets or alienate clients. Anna Rothstein says her boss is great at building team spirit: “He treats the company to fun things like dinners, ski trips, barbecues, and every year he throws a company party in a restaurant with entertainment and a huge Chinese auction. He gives away great stuff — people have won a complete Shas, or tickets to Eretz Yisrael, or vacations to Florida.”

Sharing the Wealth

Zlotowitz doesn’t present as the kind of person who makes money because he has a need for high living or expensive possessions — he appeared at the Bottom Line conference wearing a nice but simple suit, with no monograms or gold cuff links in evidence.

Anna Rothstein concurs that he’s not a particularly materialistic person. “He just loves what he does — it’s fun for him — and he loves being able to give opportunities to other people. The more successful he is, the more opportunities he can give,” she says. “Until recently he was driving a Hyundai, but eventually people advised him that as the head of major company, he needed to present a certain way.”

She says he quietly donates tremendous amounts of tzedakah, never attaching his name to anything. When he gets involved with a cause, he’s a hands-on participant, rolling up his sleeves and channeling his impressive energy into the task at hand. For example, when the four kedoshim Hy”d were murdered in Har Nof this past November, an e-mail from a friend prompted him to launch an online fund drive that collected several million dollars for the families of those who perished. He himself is modest about his role: “My brother is good at e-mail marketing,” he says. “I was just a puppet in the game, collecting the money. Nobody had to be sold on it — everyone wanted to give, and we became the solution.”

He also donates his time, giving classes for free at PCS (Professional Career Services) in Lakewood to kollel yungeleit preparing to enter the workforce, as well as many other venues including the Mirrer Yeshivah and Bar-Ilan University. He also advises tzedakah organizations on their sales and marketing — the Kollel Direct campaign at Beth Medrash Govoha was his brainchild, a program in which donors agree to sponsor a kollel learner for a given amount of time.

“People like to feel they make a difference,” he says. “If you just ask someone for $75 for Tomchei Shabbos, he might say no. But if you tell him, ‘I’m trying to raise $200 to make a family’s Shabbos. I already have $125. Could you help us out with the other $75?’ then he’ll be more willing to give.”

Described by his mother and brother as having a heart of gold, Ira says, “I get my fix from helping people. Especially helping them make a living — that’s fundamental.” Mrs. Rothstein has become accustomed to the constant stream of calls from people looking for a job or an eitzah. On his desk sits a plaque, a gift from of his top brokers, inscribed, “Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.”

Employing Jews of all stripes, Ira has occasionally given jobs to young people struggling with Yiddishkeit (some have even camped out in his basement temporarily). Of course, they have to prove they’re serious, but when they succeed, it goes far in straightening out their path. On-site minyanim, daily shiurim, and siyumim keep all the employees spiritually connected.

As a person now in the position of being a baal tzedakah, Zlotowitz has had time to meditate on the topic: “I’d like to write a thesis about giving tzedakah” he says. After meeting such venerable baalei tzedakah as the Reichmans, he has come to the conclusion that tzedakah gifts ultimately reflect the giver: who he is, what issues he has become sensitized to, in the same way a hedge fund manager decides which funds to pick based on personal interests and efficacy. “But you can never turn someone away, even if you only give a dollar,” he says.

Despite Eastern Union’s phenomenal success, Ira Zlotowitz still sees himself as the same person he was 15 years ago. While he admits that getting where he is today required a great amount of personal drive, he doesn’t believe in taking himself too seriously. “You can be rich and still be normal. The issues in a small-scale business are the same as the issues in a big business,” he says. And in the end, of course, he’s always aware of the bigger picture.

“You don’t take any of it with you to Olam Haba,” he says. “You never see a U-Haul truck hooked up to a hearse.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 548)