Taking Howard Hughes to New Heights - Rockhopper
How Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HHH) evaluated Rockhopper to bring control and transparency to spreadsheet-driven workflows.
AUM
$10B+
Annual Revenue
$1.75B
Industry
Real Estate - Master Planned Communities
Team Size
20
Department
FP&A
Technology
Microsoft 365, Adaptive Planning, Blackline
The Challenge
The Howard Hughes FP&A team plays a critical role in consolidating and reviewing forecasts across all of their master-planned communities and mixed-user assets, especially for lease activity, where small errors can quickly cascade into costly misalignment between finance and operating teams.
Manual Document Review
Like many finance organizations, Howard Hughes relies heavily on spreadsheets to manage budgeting and forecasting cycles. Lease assumption forecasts are built with exported data sources, reformatted, and shared within a Microsoft Excel file. Analysts and operations leaders would send files back and forth, each making updates during a two-week forecast cycle.
- Version control chaos – Multiple files circulating by email created confusion about which was the "final" version.
- Lack of transparency – Stakeholders couldn't easily track what had been changed, by whom, or why.
- Error risk – Mismatches between spreadsheets and actual lease expirations sometimes went unnoticed, potentially causing a material weakness.
- Misalignment – Without clear approvals and versions, different teams risked making decisions based on inconsistent assumptions.
Why Howard Hughes Chose Rockhopper
- Purpose-built for finance teams in Excel – Strong version control, advanced change tracking, and structured approvals while letting the FP&A team remain in Excel.
- Enterprise readiness – SOC 2 Type II compliant, a key requirement for internal controls and SOX compliance.
- Founder expertise – Leadership noted that Rockhopper's founders understood the problem firsthand, having lived it in finance roles themselves.
Early Impact & Alignment
- Better alignment across finance and operations — ensuring every stakeholder works from the same approved assumptions.
- Reduced errors and rework — by eliminating version chaos and bringing transparency to changes.
- Improved accountability — with a clear sign-off process and auditable record of changes.
“Version control and collaboration in Excel are very poor. Rockhopper solved that in a way no other solution we evaluated could. The fact that we can stay in Excel while gaining real control and visibility is exactly what we needed.”
Carlos Olea
Chief Financial Officer
Howard Hughes Holdings Inc.
About the Firm
Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HHH), headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, is a leading developer and operator of master-planned communities and mixed-use assets across the U.S. With a diversified portfolio that spans major markets—including Las Vegas, Houston, Phoenix, Maryland, and Honolulu—Howard Hughes oversees more than 34,000 acres of master-planned community land yet to be developed.