A former high flier with Countrywide has been appointed as CEO of the Guild of Property Professionals.
Iain McKenzie was previously “retail director” at Countrywide, responsible for its south central region.
He was appointed to that role in October 2015 and is thought to have been among the departures of November 2016.
He was with Countrywide for some five years, and was previously managing director at Enfields Franchising.
In his new role, he will be responsible for the direction and management of the Guild, which has almost 800 members.
McKenzie is replacing Marcus Whewell who has been CEO of the Guild for nine years and has now been promoted to chief financial officer for parent company GPEA Ltd, which also owns Fine & Country, PropertyLogic and PropertyPlatform.
McKenzie, who has 30 years’ agency experience, has had a long-standing relationship with The Guild and Fine & Country, having been a member of both organisations.
McKenzie said: “Having been a Guild and Fine & Country Member and recently working in the corporate environment, I fully understand the new challenges independent agents face and how the Guild can be influential in overcoming them.”
Whewell said: “I have worked for the Guild for the past nine years and have seen it grow and develop into a network of nearly 800 members. I am very proud of this achievement. It is an ideal time for me to accept a new challenge within the group and I am delighted to have been offered the role of chief financial officer.
“I know that Iain will have a very positive impact on the Guild and I am looking forward to working with him closely to help him develop the network further.”
I’ve known Iain on a professional and personal level for over 20 years. Excellent individual for this role. Congratulations Iain.
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Is this a case of poacher turned gamekeeper or visa versa, I have a similar length of service and been on both sides and wouldn’t dream of condescending to my colleagues in the independent side, the clue is in their title!
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Not all Guild Members are independent, however all I have met are independently minded! Lets hope Iain can help give us a marketing edge in these “challenging” times?
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Congratulations Iain you are a truly inspirational professional. You are greatly missed at countrywide.
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Iain is a top bloke. The Guild needs someone with his experience of Independent agency, Corporate agency and more recently his first hand experience of Countrywide’s attempts to run a “self service” brand alongside their “full service” brand. Other people I know that have been involved in this say the biggest challenge with running it alongside is that even though the vendor knows he’s having a go at selling “on the cheap”, he’ll still call the “full service” agent that put him onto it for help with that tricky bit of negotiation or that unresolved boundary dispute and the poor “full service” guy gets lumbered and obliged to help despite the self service fee. Has anyone tried PropertyPlatform, the Guild’s “self service” platform? “sell your property for as little as £299”! Apparently Guild agents were asked to buy postcode territories and then share in the upfront fee and get the chance to upsell the vendor to their “full service”. I was told it didn’t get a great reception from their members so the Guild boys started distancing themselves – “it is here if you want it – it isn’t our idea – it comes from Property Logic, our IT business”
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