Idealista Adds Zoopla CEO Charlie Bryant to its Board of Directors

Idealista has announced that it has appointed current Zoopla CEO Charlie Bryant to its board of directors. The Madrid-headquartered company which operates property portals in Spain, Italy and Portugal has added Independent Director Bryant to a board that includes founders Jesús Encinar and César Oteiza, former Immobilienscout24 CEO Marc Stilke, EQT Partners Bert Janssens and Carlos Santana Garcia-Fuster as well as Oakley Capital's Alex Collins.

Bryant has a background working for technology companies and worked for Deutsche Bank and Sesame Technology before arriving at Zoopla where he initially held positions as Managing Director of Zoopla's data services division and Chief Executive of the company's home valuation service Hometrack before being made CEO in 2017.

Commenting on Bryant's appointment, Jesús Encinar, Founder and Chairman of idealista, said: "we are delighted to have Charlie as a new board member. Charlie is a highly regarded professional who leads one of the world's best-known real estate classifieds companies and we are sure that his experience and knowledge will be very enriching for idealista."

Commenting on his appointment Charlie Bryant said: “I’m very excited about joining the talented team at idealista, a company I have long admired. Jesus and the idealista team share my passion for innovation in property marketing and creating compelling consumer and customer experiences, and I look forward to working with the management team to bring these to fruition.”

In bringing on board Bryant, idealista may be signalling an intention to follow Zoopla down its path of involvement in transactions that are adjacent to property sales. Zoopla Group has been a pioneer of property portal diversification over the last 10 years and recently acquired the insurance comparison operator Penguin Portals which, among other international interests, owns Spanish insurance aggregator Rastreator.