Rob Iula

Growth · Lifecycle · CRM

Growth operator for mortgage and SaaS.

I’m Rob Iula, Head of Growth at Cindie.ai. For 15+ years I’ve built the campaigns, data, and playbooks that get lenders and loan officers producing.

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Portrait of Rob Iula, smiling, in a charcoal blazer and white shirt.
Rob Iula. Orange County, California.

Now

Running growth at Cindie.ai

Head of Growth since August 2026

Cindie is building the AI workforce for mortgage. She engages leads, helps borrowers through the application, collects documents, and stays with clients for life.

My job is getting her in front of the lenders and loan officers who need her, and turning that attention into customers. It’s the same work I’ve done for years, with a product that does a lot more of the follow-up itself.

See what Cindie does

What I do

I build the motion that creates pipeline and gets a new customer live.

  • Demand gen and ABM

    For a named account list.

  • Lifecycle and reactivation

    Email, SMS, and the signals hiding in every send.

  • CRM and campaign ops

    So the story matches the lead source.

  • Reporting

    That talks in closed business, not vanity metrics.

Track record

Where I’ve done it

  • Insellerate

    Director of Digital Marketing

    Digital marketing for a mortgage CRM and engagement platform. I ran the lifecycle and reactivation work that turns cold and unconverted leads back into conversations. Email, list imports, buyer journeys, and landing pages, across consumer direct, retail, and wholesale. My scope also covered attribution, LinkedIn ads, and events.

  • Instant Channel

    Early hire, employee number three

    Helped build InstantIQ, a proprietary email SaaS, and helped scale the company to about $35M and an acquisition. Led a team across marketing ops, analytics, and client success. This is the build and scale story.

  • Rocket Media

    Founder

    My agency for six years. CRM, lifecycle, and full-funnel systems for clients. One engagement, around $1.2M in pipeline. Comfortable wearing a lot of hats.

  • Before that

    IT, systems, and email

    I started in IT and systems, then moved into email and marketing ops, including a run as an Email Marketing Director. I can talk to an engineer and a loan officer in the same afternoon.

How I work

“Every send is a signal.”

Timing, channel, frequency, response. Read those right and you can wake a dead lead without adding noise.

There’s no one-size-fits-all kit. Lock the ICP. Rank by fit and intent. Map the buyer and the champion. Then run personalized outreach and reuse what already converts.

I measure pipeline, conversion, cycle time, and revenue, and I put the budget where the proof is strongest.

Writing

Things I’ve written

Email marketing2 min read

How CRM Strategy and Innovative Thinking Transformed Our Email Marketing Success at Instant Channel

Falling inbox placement and a CRM that didn’t talk to our email tools. Here’s how we fixed both at Instant Channel, and what it did for revenue.

Read the article

Contact

Let’s talk shop.

If you work in mortgage or SaaS and want to compare notes on lifecycle, CRM, or where AI fits in, send me a note.