This week's People Roundup has seen major C-suite changes worldwide, and some job losses in Singapore. We'll start in Europe...
Tobias Hartmann will leave his position as CEO at Scout24 in March due to personal reasons, and his successor has already been appointed.
Scout24's current Chief Product & Technology Officer, Ralf Weitz, will take over from Hartmann for a period of five years, starting 1 March 2025.
Hans-Holger Albrecht, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, said in a press release:
"The Supervisory Board is looking forward to continuing the close and trustful collaboration with Ralf Weitz. He will assume the CEO role from Tobias Hartmann on 1 March 2025, in addition to his role as Chief Product & Technology Officer. Due to his many years of experience and impressive track record within the company as well his product management expertise, Ralf Weitz has everything it takes to further drive the successful strategy and growth of Scout24 SE.
"Tobias Hartmann has led and developed the company with great success since November 2018. During his tenure, the Group's revenues, profitability and growth have increased remarkably. As a result, the company has delivered exceptional results and created excellent value for its shareholders. Under his leadership, the Scout24 Group has been focused on the real estate business. Tobias also completed successfully several strategic acquisitions to strengthen the company’s market position. We regret his departure but respect his decision not to extend his contract for personal reasons after two successful terms."
Tobias Hartmann said:
"Scout24 SE is a very special company. It has been an extraordinary honor and pleasure to steer and manage the company over the last few years together with such a strong and committed team."
Scout's most recent financial filing was made in October—the Q3 2024 statement announced typically strong performance.
Meanwhile, Scout24 hired a new specialist CTO in September, appointing Gertrud Kolb to the role. It is unknown whether Kolb joined the company in the knowledge that its CEO was due to depart and the CPTO was set to step up to fill the role.
Maria Björkander has been appointed CEO of Qasa, the Schibsted-owned proptech that provides Sweden’s largest service for renting out housing.
She replaces the co-founder of the company, Fredrik Strömsten, who left the company in September to join Sana.
Strömsten and the rest of his cofounders all stepped down in September.
Björkander, who was most recently a product manager at Volvo, said:
"I am taking over the leadership at Qasa at an incredibly exciting time.
"The company has had an impressive development in recent years and really proven that both the product and the business model work on the Swedish market by becoming the largest in rental housing. Now we are facing the next phase, both in terms of the development of the business and expansion into new markets. It feels incredibly fun to lead this strong and committed team into the next chapter in our growth journey."
Qasa operates in Sweden and Finland and is set to expand to Norway as part of strategic partnerships with the market-leading real estate portals Finn.no and Oikotie.
Aingeru Duarte has left his role as head of digital at Adevinta.
Duarte returns to MediaMarkt, where he worked before joining Adevinta.
Duarte is one of many Adevinta employees to leave the business in a flurry of changes since Permira and Blackstone took control of Adevinta earlier this year for circa $13 billion.
The company has already renamed its Spain entity, divested from Irish portal Daft.ie (and other Irish marketplaces under the Distilled Media umbrella.
Houseful is entering a consultation period with some employees in its software business, with veteran Nikki Cole being the first big name to leave the company after 17 years.
Houseful's software segment includes Alto Software, Jupix and Expert Agent and CFP.
A spokesperson for Houseful said:
"As we look to 2025, we are focused on driving further efficiencies in our software business and recalibrating certain roles in our organisation. These proposals, which do not impact our core products of Alto, Jupix, Expert Agent and CFP, were very much a last resort.
"We want to reassure our customers that no roles involved in the development, support, or delivery of these products are affected. Our goal is to ensure we continue delivering enhanced products and services at pace, maintaining the value our customers expect from these industry-leading platforms. We are fully committed to supporting our affected colleagues throughout this process."
Staff at Zoopla are not expected to be affected.
Cole posted on LinkedIn to announce her departure, saying:
"After 17 years working across estate agency, new homes, commercial portal and software – from start up, to PLC, and then PE owned, it’s finally time for me to hang up my ZPG/Houseful hat and move on to new adventures."
REA Group has appointed Tara Christianson as the group's new National Customer Training Manager.
Christianson will lead customer training initiatives across franchises, ownership groups and agencies.
The appointment comes as a response to customer feedback which found 60% of consumers wanted more proactive support and training.
Christianson said:
"We’re doubling down on service, committed to helping you get bigger, better results. This new structure is about creating better employee experiences so that we can create better customer experiences. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and I’m feeling good."
The Singaporean horizontal marketplace Carousell has cut 76 jobs in response to lower demand from consumers.
A spokesperson for the company told This Week In Asia:
"Affected roles were from both business and tech departments … with ongoing slowdown of consumer demand, we sought to proactively make adjustments to ensure the long-term sustainability and operational efficiency of our Group."
Carousell lost $38 million in 2023, from revenues of $116 million.
The Turkish generalised marketplace Sahibinden has appointed technology veteran Bulent Akar as the firm's new CTO.
He was previously CTO at Turkey's leading food delivery platform Yemeksepeti, and he is currently co-founder and Chairman at the boutique software development and consultancy firm Agada Tech.
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