Spotahome has appointed Cleo Sham, who helped grow Uber’s presence in China to become the ridesharing app’s largest market and led the EMEA operations for the American company, as Chief Operating Officer to oversee the Madrid-based PropTech company’s global operations functions to spearhead fast-growth.
In the past year alone, Spotahome has secured almost half of the $200m total contract value for its European landlords with over 7.5m total nights booked on its platform to-date. The company hopes to grow in 2019 under the leadership of the former Director of Operations UBER China, with a London hub opening in Q1, 2019, and at least 200 new hires.
Sham begun her journey with Spotahome a few weeks ago, taking over from former COO and Co-founder Bruno Bianchi who has taken on a newly-created role as Director of Strategy.
Spotahome recent high profile appointments include former Amazon executive Balaji Nageswaran as Chief Product Officer, with further key positions to be hired within the next few months including Chief Technology Officer, Chief Growth Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief People Officer, among others. Sham and the new executive team will be based in London to work in the largest rental market in Europe.
Spotahome is an outfit that helps customers find and secure property rental. Under Sham’s leadership she will manage the operations of the 360-degree customer experience, which covers Spotahome’s unique selling proposition – the Homecheckers, property listings, landlord management, regional development and the tenant experience.
“Spotahome is uniquely positioned to enhance the residential property rental experience as technology further enables more efficient services to users,” said Cleo Sham, COO of Spotahome. “Alejandro has built a forward-looking company with strong foundations, with a vision and values that are aligned with my business principles. The establishment of a hub in the UK and the development of a strong product and tech team will allow us to help the rental market provide a product ready for the digital native.”
“Cleo has had an incredible journey to lead her to us, and her experience really lends itself to our vision and ambitions to reinvent the rental markets,” said Alejandro Artacho, CEO and co-founder of Spotahome. “Her exhaustive experience of scaling one of the most formidable startups in recent history in a challenging market, and her knowledge of harnessing new growth strategies that are lean and creative will benefit Spotahome’s mission. We are humbled to have such a talented businessperson join us, someone who will undoubtedly make an immediate impact on our processes and communications to build a stronger and more focused global team.”
Sham’s appointment also marks the first woman to join the C-suite, in a company where 40% of employees are women. Spotahome has announced it will near double its staff number in 2019 with the recruitment of software engineers, operations and other functions in both London and Madrid.
With Sham part of the helm, Spotahome will encourage more women and people from diverse backgrounds within its product and tech teams, as it commits to equal opportunities. Sham has been a strong ambassador for diversity and inclusion, recognised by her participation in leading events Women in Technology, EUROUT and Feminin Pluriel.
