Two out of the three new bosses announced at The Property Franchise Group have left their positions within six months, it can be revealed.

Last October, TPFG announced the appointments of Ellie Hall as managing director of Martin & Co, and of Graham Lock as managing director of the Xperience brand.

However, both have now left, with Hall having gone back to her old job, and ex-online agent Lock now promoting an independent new venture educating agents on how they can thrive in harsh times.

Only Nick Neill, appointed as managing director of EweMove, remains in the post to which he was also appointed last year.

Until the three appointments, CEO Ian Wilson had headed up all three brands.

However, since the appointments were announced, Hall has been replaced by Louise Griffiths. No replacement has yet been announced for Lock at Xperience. Griffiths took up her job in March.

We asked Wilson about the rapid departures.

He told us: “We appointed three MDs in summer 2017.

“Ellie Hall had left her role as acquisitions director at LSL because LSL had suspended its acquisition programme.

“Ellie was with us for two months before indicating that for personal reasons she could not contemplate a national role which meant extensive travel and overnight stays away from home.

“Ellie was clearly a very experienced lettings and acquisition manager. She toured the UK in autumn 2017 with Sharon Titchmarsh, now trading in her own right as Winston Stanley, our retained acquisition broker, preaching the benefits of lettings portfolio acquisitions to our franchisees.

“So, this was an amicable parting.

“Ellie is now back at LSL where she has re-started its acquisition programme.

“Graham Lock stayed for six months before deciding that franchising was harder than it looks!

“He has a very credible online-agent experience from his days as a founder of House Network. But he did not enjoy the regulatory and compliance aspects of marshalling a franchise network. He left on good terms and is retained as a digital marketing consultant.

“Nick Neil, a high performing EweMove franchisee who happens to have an MBA and a ‘blue-chip’ corporate background, has turned around EweMove’s performance with profits in the last six months of 2017.

“Louise Griffiths is the new MD at Martin & Co and is ex- Savills and Romans, where she consolidated its property management function into one centre with admin back-up (not customer facing) from India.

“Louise is bringing the same laser focus to Martin & Co franchisee support.”

Wilson added of Xperience: “We have no plans to rush to replace Graham Lock.

“There are other projects on which we would prioritise the spend, including our customer relationship management platform, brand development, and data management.”