Yopa has appointed the former managing director of lettings at Purplebricks, Verona Frankish, as its new CEO.
Verona Frankish left her position at Purplebricks in March 2021 after two years.
Frankish joined the online estate agency in March 2019 from the Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB) as national mortgage director. She went on to head up the conveyancing and lettings business two months later following the departure of co-founders, brothers Michael and Kenny Bruce, as well as Richard Jacques.
During her seven years at MAB, Frankish worked closely with a number of the UKs biggest Estate Agency brands as well as many of the hybrid agents, helping them to maximise their revenue by creating new and innovative ways to create value.
Frankish was involved with Purplebricks prior to launch, working with the founders to build their mortgage proposition for the new model. In 2018 Verona moved from MAB to Purplebricks, where she took responsibility for mortgages, lettings & conveyancing, as a member of the executive team.
She said: “I am delighted to join the team at Yopa for the next stage of its journey. The team have done an incredible job in recent years in growing the business and setting it up for future success. I am privileged to have the opportunity to lead Yopa through the next stage of its evolution.”
Freddie Cornes, Yopa’s current managing director and former CFO, has decided to leave the business to move onto a new opportunity. He led the significant expansion of Yopa over the last three years and oversaw over 100% growth in revenues, increased market share and reduction in the cost base.
Grenville Turner, non-executive director of Yopa, commented: “Freddie has achieved an enormous amount, however, he indicated he wanted to move onto a new challenge. His departure is a source of regret, but we fully respect his decision. We thank him for his fantastic work over the past three years.”
In the meantime, Cornes will remain with Yopa to help with the transition to the new leadership.
Turner added: “Verona brings a wealth of relevant experience to the role and an extensive understanding of the U.K. residential property market. We are delighted to be able to appoint such an outstanding candidate to our growing leadership team”
Comments (8)
You’d imagine that FC is off to join his old Yopa colleague SC at RE/MAX as they pursue their self-employed model. RE/MAX have already recruited, I’m sorry I mean sub-contracted, a large chunk of PB’s agents (principally lettings specialists) all over the country, and its widely understood that several of them have signed up despite still working with PB and are being asked to bring their PB clients with them. So, it is not too imaginative to think that with this latest announcement the propaganda machine will kick in to encourage Yopa agents to move to RE/MAX. Of course, the wheels will likely come off when HMRC come looking at the IR35 situation, and the agents don’t agree to pay for a franchise.
Yopa’s appointment of VF is not that surprising. She was a well-respected force for lettings at PB but was let down by the politics associated with the head office lettings operations – poor compliance throughout & managers who failed to keep up with the changes in the laws. I have no doubt she has the skills to help Yopa, but if the agents leave for businesses who offer a more rewarding package like RE/MAX, EXP, Nested, Hauzoo, The Agency UK (the list is endless) ; then there could be trouble ahead.
As for PB well they need to call time on their lettings business; either sell their existing portfolio of landlords to a lettings specialist or outsource their management and remove the head ache.
The next 2-3 months will be interesting…..
well respected ?? Think you need to ask the Shareholders that of which I was one Even if politics are in play you don’t “cock up” to that extent surely- is ahead of lettings not also responsible to ensure compliance is good and proper.
Yopa really is the gift that keeps giving ! Who next, RQ as the MD?
Brilliant. I nearly spat out my drink!
She appears to be popular in the industry, but, unfortunately, the blame for the PB lettings deposit fiasco (no other word for it) is on her – she oversaw letting. Yes, the ultimate responsibility lies with the CEO who didn’t know what he didn’t know, but it was her job to make sure the tedious detail of letting compliance was adhered to.
Anyway, as for this hire, clearly Yopa see their ££££ coming from FS not selling houses, hence have got a mortgage person in.
In charge of PB lettings and jumping ship just before it hits the fan.
Well done Yopa (make sure you get references).
Make sure your deposits are protected, YOPA.
Who has looked at PB lettings and thought “Yep that’s what we aspire to, lets make the call”