Jill Abla

Jill Abla, CEO of Genesis Homes, has gone where no woman in the Savannah building market has gone before. “I’m proud to say I am currently serving as the president of the Builder 20 Club, which is a prestigious organization of industry peers, with regional chapters nationwide.”

Why was the appointment so unusual? Probably because she’s the antithesis of a “good ‘ol boy,” which has been the industry’s standard since forever. Abla is originally from Buffalo, New York. She’s only been in the building trade for about five years, and has lived in Savannah just a bit longer than that. So how did she arrive at her presidential post? “They looked at our numbers, and our company had the highest gross profit margins in our entire Builder 20 group,” she explains. “They looked at our processes, our cash flow, and I think they respected what we’ve managed to accomplish in a relatively short time.”

Abla is animated, engaging and friendly. She’s a devoted mother to two college-age sons. But there’s a cool customer beneath the warm exterior. She’s a calculating businesswoman. Not in the metaphorical sense, but literally.

“I graduated with a Business Administration and Accounting Degree from Oklahoma State, then spent seven years at the First National Bank of Oklahoma City,” recalls Abla. “I rose to become an Assistant Vice-President, and Certified Cash Manager. I did everything in the banking world other than commercial loans.”

While raising her boys, the banker became a professor. “When we lived in Ohio, I taught tax and payroll accounting, as well as other business courses at the local college.”

When she came to Savannah and found work at Genesis, she rose through the ranks as efficiently as she had at her Oklahoma bank decades prior. She took over the accounting department for starters, and then was named Controller, then Chief Financial Officer, then Chief Executive Officer. Now she co-owns the company with Richard Best.

“I suppose whatever success I’ve been lucky enough to achieve at Genesis can be attributed to being a business person learning about building. This, as opposed to many builders in this and other areas, who know construction, but haven’t the appropriate grasp of business fundamentals.”

This former professor may have become a student of the building trade, but has a wonderful instructor in Best, her partner at Genesis Homes. “Richard and I have absolutely identical morals, convictions and business sense. We trust each other, have a certain symmetry in how we think, and how we feel our business should grow.”