Former Countrywide man Andrew Pennells has rejoined his old boss, Bob Scarff, at proptech firm Callwell.

Pennells was sales director at Countrywide for over ten years until May 2015, when he was promoted to group transformation director, in charge of the Building our Future strategy.

However, Pennells lasted less than a year in this role, leaving last April.

Since then, he has run his own independent consultancy, and has also become non-executive director at the hugely successful repairs reporting firm Fixflo.

Scarff, director of estate agency at Countrywide, had come to grief a year earlier.

The pair first worked together in 2005 when Countrywide acquired Bradford & Bingley Estate Agents. Pennells initially took up the role of managing director of Countrywide Mortgage Advisers and was responsible for the mortgage sales force throughout the acquired 300-branch network.

When that sales force was absorbed into Countrywide’s mainstream sales force, he took the role of sales director reporting direct to Scarff with responsibility for half of the branch network.

They worked together as part of the senior management team of the estate agency division during the period when Countrywide was taken private in 2007, the credit crunch years, the IPO of 2013 and on to setting a new record profit for the division in 2014.

The partnership only came to an end in 2015 with Scarff’s abrupt departure.

Scarff said: “I always had a feeling that Andrew and I would work together again some day. Since Rob Wellstead and I relaunched Callwell in September, the growth has met all of our expectations. We now have over 220 branches on the system and plenty in the pipeline.

“Having identified the need to recruit a commercial director, there was only one name on my list. Rob thought the same too when he first met Andrew in November.

“Agreeing terms for Andrew to join the business as a shareholder was done and dusted in less than 15 minutes. I’m really looking forward to working with him again.”

Meanwhile, Scarff himself is notching up 40 years in the industry – and asking for suggestions as to how much he started on.

http://www.callwell.co.uk/blog/2017-01-04-forty-different-years