Former Expedia Employee Johan Svanström Named New CEO at Rightmove

Rightmove has announced that Johan Svanström will become CEO after this year's financial results, with current CEO Peter Brooks-Johnson set to retire.

It has taken Rightmove five months to find a replacement after Brooks-Johnson announced his imminent retirement in May, with the current CEO continuing to be involved with the company into 2023 while Svanström transitions into the role before officially being named CEO in March. Brooks-Johnson retires after 16 years with Rightmove and the past five years as CEO.

Svanström boasts a strong CV including several senior management positions including five years as the President of Hotels.com—part of the Expedia Group—and at EQT Group, where he is a partner. Svanström has also held board membership positions at eight separate businesses since 2016, including three presently.

Johan Svanstrom

In a Linkedin post published this morning, Svanström said:

"I’m very excited to join the Rightmove team as CEO in March next year!

Rightmove is an incredibly strong brand and FTSE100 business with a purpose of making home moving easier for buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants. Rightmove partners with real estate agents and homebuilding companies to enhance their digitisation journey and provides data intelligence services to many stakeholders. I look forward to working with the team in building world class products & solutions for the wider real estate eco-system."

Andrew Fisher, chairman of the Board of Directors at Rightmove, said:

"I am delighted to welcome Johan, whose proven ability to scale established companies along with his digital acumen and experience of marketplaces will continue to add significant value for our customers, home hunters, shareholders and team.”

"I would like to thank Peter for his outstanding leadership as CEO over the past five years and for his significant contribution to the Company throughout the past 16 years.  Under his leadership the Company has significantly increased value for our customers and home hunters, with time spent on Rightmove increasing from 11.7bn minutes in 2016, to over 18bn in 2021. This has delivered sustained growth for our shareholders, increasing annual revenues from £220 million to £304 million in the same period and returning more than £750 million through dividends and share buybacks."

Svanström joins a strong company in Rightmove. The UK's number one portal, Rightmove is a publicly owned company and a household name for buyers and sellers around Britain, and it is one of the elite global portals with the likes of Zillow in the United States.

The company's financial's consistently please its shareholders, with Online Marketplaces awarding Rightmove the "Slow but Steady" award in its H1 Financial Results roundup.

However, Rightmove consistently receives negative feedback from agents for its expensive pricing model, yet such is the power of Rightmove to the British public, many agents feel obligated to pay the subscription fees as they rise every year.

Rightmove's closest rivals are Zoopla and OnTheMarket, both of whom have been in the headlines recently for different reasons. Zoopla, the UK's number two portal, is going through its third round of redundancies this year, while challenger OnTheMarket has released no fewer than three major sets of features since September including OnTheMarket Software.