A former commercial director of Zoopla, who worked at the portal for 12 years, has been named as managing director of Boomin.
Athena Hubble joins the fledgling company today having worked most recently at the online vehicle business Carwow, and with a CV that includes other digital giants including Yell and Thomson Directories, as well as Zoopla.
Her arrival comes on top of recent announcements regarding Boomin's new chairman, the new chair of the portal’s strategic board, and other top table appointments.
A Boomin statement released today says Hubble has a strong track record working with founders in fast-growing digital businesses, helping to unlock material growth and create innovative solutions and experiences for customers.
At Zoopla Hubble is described as having forged strong relationships with agents and having gained an in-depth knowledge of the industry.
She oversaw the rapid growth of the business including a more than four-fold increase in agent numbers from 4,000 to 19,000 and a 300 per cent increase in the size of her team.
She was also behind Zoopla’s long term loyalty strategy and membership model.
At Carwow she was instrumental in designing and implementing a new pricing model, automating partner performance reporting and launching a digital back office.
She says of her new role: “Having been part of the early creation of the property portal industry, I am delighted to be joining Boomin who are writing the next chapter with a refreshing and genuine desire not only to deliver innovation and better experiences for agents and customers but to also reset the relationship so it is more collaborative and a win win for everyone.
“It is particularly exciting for me to be back working with agents and also to be part of such an experienced team where I can work closely with [founder Michael Bruce] who passionately champions agents and consumers and who has an incredible track record in building powerful brands within the property industry.”
And Bruce himself describes Hubble’s appointment as “a major coup” and says: “She is well known and respected in the industry, having played a pivotal role in building long term relationships with agents during her twelve year tenure.
“An innovator to the core, with a track record of success working with transformative businesses, Athena will lead the team and work closely with agents, be available and visible, listen, learn and engage with our key working groups to ensure Boomin leads industry change, continuously improves the user experience and unlocks new income streams for our agent partners.”
He continues: “The strength, depth and quality of our leadership team, with recent hires including Stephen Murphy as Chairman and Richard Pennycook as Senior Non-Executive Director and Sarah Edmundson as Chair of our Strategic Board and now Athena, we are building a team who fit our DNA and have the experience to help us build a great business.”
And he concludes: “Be in no doubt that we are serious about reinventing the property portal and resetting the balance of power in favour of agents.”
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Sorry but who is paying for all of these new hires? All of this stuff they spout is nonesence marketing. They are playing with agents heads. All these hires for a business that isn't making profit make no sense.
They don't care about us, they are trying to create yet another business to make themselves richer - end of.
Bring in all the leaders they like they won't address the underlying concern that they are not trustworthy. Poacher turned gamekeeper!
Onthemarket are a better option, or one of the others (excluding RM and Z here as they are just as bad). Agents need to think about where they spend their money. It would be wasted with these. In the long run they (agents) will be paying for these expensive hires, these new board members etc. They are a startup for goodness sake why do they wven have a board??
Ben J - I thought it was free to join Boomin. And the cash being spent by Boomin is their own - which means they are backing themselves. Also major individuals such as Athena Hubble do not tend to make career decisions to join ventures without looking under the bonnet. As to the 'good' or 'bad' that Boomin is causing agents - a better question to ask is why all of a sudden are the top three portals all now pivoting their models, with proptech now the daily currency, could it be that Boomin, Openbrix, Moovshack, Property.xyz, etc are with their UX approach, making the established portals look again at their models. Digital innovation/transformation is the new oil that will power the profits of agents, if the portals get the mix right it is a win for all. The alternative is agents developing their own solutions - a costly journey and a time sensitive one.
The top three portals are innovating because the time in right, new tech is available, OTM have listened to their members who have asked for new functions this is why agents who are disgruntled with RM should support OTM before any other portal. The BBs are good with spin even to the point that they believe it themselves, like Ben J said, Bring in all the leaders they like they won't address the underlying concern that they are not trustworthy. Poacher turned gamekeeper. They may have recruited some highly paid personnel but if you look at the history of these people they jump around from pillar to post and are better known as a mercenary.
Andrew, you always talk a lot of sense. Yes it is free for now. However somewhere down the line it will be the agents paying as BBs need to claw their investment back. Yes it has ignited a whole load of pivoting and new proptech solutions which can only be a good thing. There is absolutely no point us agents developing our own solutions we should focus on doing what we do best and leave this to the innovators. However we should also try support innovators when they put out their solutions (instead of bashing them). I just can't support the BBs though and will be giving it a wide berth.
"okay Boomin"
All spin, no substance.
If they're going to steal OTM's clothes and dress themselves up as an "agents" portal then give us the details.
1. How many working groups have you got?
2. How many agents are on them?
3. What real, measurable influence have they had on the portal's direction?
Come back to me with 1,2 &3 and let's have a debate about what's in agents best interests then.
Soon Boomin will have more staff than agents signed up! :)
If it’s free. You are the product.
Think of all the data you have about applicants and vendors and landlords and tenants as gold in a mine you own, but rarely extract. Now think of boomin’ as a miner coming to you and saying I will dig your mine and extract and take away all your gold for free. That wouldn’t be a good business proposition for the mine owner would it?
Remember PB promised their own agents they would earn a fortune working for themselves, only for them to find out its wasn't so green on the other side long term? Really they were recruited to collect data on homeowners all round the country of people potentially looking to sell, which made the company more valuable and owners to earn more money through capital investment and increase in share prices. A share price, which at writing this comment, is trading at less than when it first opened. A great model to make money from but bad investment for either staff or later investors sold a dream that was never fulfilled.
SO.... Why not create a new company after this where you offer it to agents for free, so they can providing you all their data and new data of people looking in the area and even if you can deliver leads after a year, you still win as thats your data now.....
Your company now becomes value and interesting for investors to invest within, so you can make more money from agents and the industry without it solving the main problem which is Helping agents to remain vital using their own data for themselves and not giving it away to others. Stay awake.... when its free YOU ARE THE CONSUMER.....
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