Austin, TX (PRWEB) April 23, 2015
HomeAway, Inc. (NASDAQ: AWAY), which celebrated its 10th anniversary in February, today announced changes to its organization that position the company for continued success over the next decade. These changes also advance and expand the responsibilities of key executives.
After a successful five years with HomeAway, President and Chief Operating Officer Brent Bellm is resigning in June to pursue other opportunities. Brian Sharples, co-founder and chief executive officer, will resume the role of HomeAway President.
“We want to thank Brent for his extraordinary accomplishments with HomeAway,” says Sharples. “While we are losing a talented executive, we’re taking this as an opportunity to make organizational changes that best position the company for strong continued growth and leadership in the vacation rentals category.”
Additionally, Chief Product Officer Tom Hale assumes the title and a newly defined role of chief operating officer for HomeAway. Hale, who currently has oversight of engineering and product management, takes on expanded responsibility for product marketing and customer experience. This change will unite all main touch-points of the product experience under Hale, who has a passion for creating a world-class experience for HomeAway customers.
Senior Vice President of the Americas, Jon Gray, takes on new responsibilities as the company’s chief revenue officer. In this position, he is responsible for delivery of global revenue and manages the business development, sales and regional business teams. Gray was the third employee at HomeAway and has served the company in many leadership capacities over the years, most recently leading HomeAway’s largest and most successful region that includes North and South America.
“I’ve worked closely with Jon over the last ten years, and he’s consistently over-delivered on financial and operating results. I’m thrilled that regions outside of the Americas will benefit from his leadership, particularly in Europe,” says Sharples.
Jeff Hurst, who currently leads HomeAway’s fastest growing business segment, e-commerce, joins the C-suite as chief strategy officer. In this role, he continues to have oversight over e-commerce, as well as other new initiatives to drive long-term growth for the company. Hurst joined HomeAway in 2010 as the global director of strategy and transitioned to lead e-commerce three years ago. He previously worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company.
HomeAway is also promoting Senior Vice President of Global Customer Experience Jeff Mosler to chief service officer as a part of Hale’s organization. Mosler joined the company from Amazon to head up customer experience in 2010 and has built an industry-leading global service and support organization spanning all HomeAway brands.
“As you can see, HomeAway is in the midst of an exciting transition and we are energized by these new additions to our C-team. Earlier this year we announced a renewed focus on building the HomeAway brand and raising awareness about the entire vacation rental industry,” says Sharples. “The market opportunity continues to be extraordinary, and we have a talented team to navigate HomeAway through its bright future.”
Finally, Carl Shepherd, co-founder of HomeAway and chief strategy and development officer, has announced his intention to retire in the second half of the year. He will remain on the HomeAway board of directors as a non-employee director.
“Carl has been a tremendous business partner and advisor through the years. While I will miss his daily presence, I am excited he will he remain engaged in our business through his seat on the HomeAway board,” says Sharples.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking” statements, subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are based on HomeAway management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. Forward-looking statements include information concerning HomeAway’s expected, possible or assumed future results of operations, growth and business outlook and organizational changes. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts and may be identified by terms such as “continues,” “plans,” “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “could,” “look forward to,” or similar expressions and the negatives of those terms. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause HomeAway’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to the following: (a) HomeAway’s inability to continue to attract and maintain a critical mass of property listings and travelers, (b) HomeAway’s inability to effectively implement organizational changes and (c) such other risks and uncertainties described more fully in documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). All information provided in this press release is as of the date hereof and, except as required by law, HomeAway assumes no obligation to update this information, even if new information becomes available in the future.
About HomeAway
HomeAway, Inc. based in Austin, Texas, is the world’s leading online marketplace for the vacation rental industry, with sites representing over one million paid listings of vacation rental homes in 190 countries. Through HomeAway, owners and property managers offer an extensive selection of vacation homes that provide travelers with memorable experiences and benefits, including more room to relax and added privacy, for less than the cost of traditional hotel accommodations. The company also makes it easy for vacation rental owners and property managers to advertise their properties and manage bookings online. The HomeAway portfolio includes the leading vacation rental websites HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com in the United States; HomeAway.co.uk and OwnersDirect.co.uk in the United Kingdom; HomeAway.de in Germany; Abritel.fr and Homelidays.com in France; HomeAway.es and Toprural.es in Spain; AlugueTemporada.com.br in Brazil; HomeAway.com.au and Stayz.com.au in Australia; and Bookabach.co.nz in New Zealand. Asia Pacific short-term rental site, travelmob.com, is also owned by HomeAway.
HomeAway also operates BedandBreakfast.com, the most comprehensive global site for finding bed-and-breakfast properties, providing travelers with another source for unique lodging alternatives to chain hotels.