Hiring Roundup: Scout24, CoStar, AVIV Group and Inmuebles24 Appoint Execs

Company: Scout24 - owner and operator of the market-leading German real estate portal ImmoScout24.

Hire: In this case it's a promotion for a 10-year Scout24 employee Dr. Gesa Crockford who is set to become a new Managing Director of ImmoScout24, a position she will share with Ralf Weitz and Dr. Thomas Schroeter.

In her new role, Dr. Crockford will be responsible for the sales organization, customer service, customer relationship management and pricing at ImmoScout24.

Context: Scout24 has been diversifying its revenue streams and tapping into a greater TAM for several years. The portal operator has also been migrating clients onto premium, more expensive packages. Having worked in product analysis and pricing at the company since 2016, Crockford's appointment comes with a view to further optimising the portal's ARPA.

Company: CoStar - the U.S. commercial data giant, marketplace operator and increasingly relevant Zillow rival in the residential real estate market.

Hire: Gene Boxer has been hired as General Counsel and Corporate secretary.

In his new role, Boxer will be a strategic advisor to CEO Andy Florance and will be in charge of legal matters at the company and heavily involved in M&A and reporting to the SEC. Boxer has 20 years of experience in the field having worked at Cushman & Wakefield and most recently as Chief Strategy Officer at Sirius International Insurance Group.

Context: CoStar has been coming after a big slice of Zillow's residential revenue pie for some time. The company has made several acquisitions (Homesnap, Homes.com and others) to position itself in the market and has a history of using inorganic growth to achieve scale.

The company will no doubt be weighing up further targets in the residential field both at home and overseas and Boxer's appointment will provide another set of experienced eyes for these deals.

Company: AVIV Group - the European online classifieds division of German publishing giant Axel Springer which owns and operates Seloger, Immoweb and Immowelt among others.

Hire: Caroline Evans de Gàntes, who was appointed MD of leading French real estate vertical Seloger in March 2021, will now be Managing Director of the SeLoger Group and Managing Director of the AVIV brand in France which also includes mandate lead generator Meilleurs Agents.

"I want to bring closeness and modernity to Groupe SeLoger and Meilleurs Agents brands in order to offer our private and professional customers the best possible experience, and to actively contribute to the attractiveness of our group. As a key player in PropTech, we want to strengthen our European presence by offering a real estate platform whose vocation is to bring more transparency, simplicity, efficiency, and data expertise to the market." said Evans de Gàntes

Context: Meilleurs Agents is a big part of Axel Springer's classifieds strategy in France. The site is essentially a portal for consumers to find and compare real estate agents and see the value of their home meaning that it is a great source of sales mandate leads for Seloger's agent customers.

The company has been using Meilleurs Agents to develop its lead-based revenue sharing model for Seloger and tying the two platforms together under the same management makes perfect sense.

Company: Inmuebles24, the leading Mexican real estate portal which was recently bought out by Brazilian end-to-end specialist Quinto Andar

New Hire: Former health-tech founder Ricardo Carvallo has been appointed Country Manager at the portal after the previous incumbent, Augustin Iglesias left to found a new luxury PropTech company, Pulppo.

Context: Inmuebles24 is part of the Argentinian online classifieds operator Navent which was bought out by Qunito Amdar over the new year period. There are always departures after such big changes, but Quinto Andar does claim to practice a very hands-off approach to the companies it acquires.

Image credits: Linkedin