Get on the bus

When London Bay Homes President and CEO Mark Wilson hired Sabra Smith in 2014, he knew he was getting an experienced human resources executive.

Smith, among other career stops, headed up HR at Bonita Bay Group from 1992 to 2008 — when the company grew into one of the largest homebuilders and developers in Southwest Florida. But while Smith has helped hire some 70 people in less than three years at Naples-based London Bay, her main mission at the company veered off the traditional human resources track.

That mission? To create and implement an internal program, dubbed an employee-branding campaign, that would be a road map for anyone on the London Bay payroll to articulate the company's “why.” The major assignment took on an even greater sense of urgency for Smith considering London Bay, surging in home sales, has grown from 60 to 120 employees since 2015. Officials with the company, founded in 1990, decline to disclose revenue figures.