Realtor.com operator Move Inc. has hired Mike J. d’Almada-Remedios, former chief information officer at eBay and Shopping.com, to serve as the company’s chief technology officer.
The company did not previously have a CTO. D’Almada-Remedios will lead company strategic and tactical technology initiatives and will be responsible for the functionality, performance, scalability and reliability of the company’s tech platforms that support its Web sites and operations, the company announced.
Lorna Borenstein, Move Inc. president, said in a statement that d’Almada-Remedios’ background in e-commerce and comparison shopping are "two critical areas for Move and our consumers."
Move Inc. has announced a series of management changes — including new hires and resignations — in the past year.
Allan Dalton, former Realtor.com president who in February 2007 was assigned to work on a hush-hush project within the company, resigned last month but will serve for at least the next 12 months as a company adviser, according to a company report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
David Lereah, former chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, was hired by Move Inc. in May 2007 to work with Dalton on the new project.
Dalton had joined the company in 2002, when it was called Homestore. Jack Dennison, who also joined the company in 2002 as its chief operating officer, gave notice of his resignation on Sept. 28, 2007, and left the company two days later.
Dustin Luther, founder of the Seattle-based Rain City Guide real estate blog, joined Move as its director of consumer innovations in 2006 and resigned a year later, in December 2007.
Errol Samuelson, president of the company’s Top Producer division, which offers marketing tools for real estate professionals, took the helm at Realtor.com when Dalton was moved out of that role.
Move Inc. in May 2007 announced the hire Borenstein, a former executive at Yahoo, as company president, reporting to Move Inc. CEO Mike Long.
She also has worked for Hewlett-Packard and served as vice president and general manager for eBay. Borenstein and d’Almada-Remedios are among several former eBay employees now at Move.
In December, Move announced the hire of Gilbert FitzGerald as vice president of analytics. FitzGerald had worked on search and advertising technologies at eBay.
And in November, Move announced the hire of Justin Miller as senior vice president of product management. Miller had served as a European product executive at eBay and also worked for Webvan and Apple.
Other Move hires in the past several months include Randy Wiggington, also a former eBay and Apple employee who worked on site stability and availability while serving as an engineer for eBay. Wiggington was hired as a site wide architect for Move Inc.
Last month, Move announced the hire of Patty Mitchell as senior vice president of consumer media and Steven Brown as vice president of advertising sales.
Mitchell has previously worked as a consultant to advertising agencies and media and social communications company, and was vice president of worldwide sales for Six Apart Inc. That company is responsible for blogging tools and platforms including Movable Type, TypePad and LiveJournal.com.
Brown had worked for online publishing company SilverCarrot Inc. as the company’s chief sales and marketing officer.
Top managers at Move, including CEO Long and Lewis R. Belote III, the company’s chief financial officer, came under fire this month from a shareholder group that seeks their removal based on a problem investment that has — at least temporarily — tied up about $130 million.
Long and Belote were part of a company management team — which also included Dalton and Dennison — that arrived in the wake of a major corporate accounting scandal.
In its annual report, released Feb. 29, Move Inc. officials reported that the company’s investment in action-rate securities issued primarily by student loan funding organizations ran into trouble when "during the week of Feb. 11 … we were informed that there was insufficient demand at auction for some of our auction-rate securities.
"We also experienced a similar situation with our remaining auction-rate securities during the following two weeks. As a result, these affected securities are currently not liquid; the interest rates have been reset to predetermined higher rates; and we may be required to hold them until they are redeemed by the issuer or to maturity which ranges from June 2030 to November 2047," the company reported.
That means that the company may not be able to access that money without a loss unless future auctions are successful, redeemed by the issuer or they mature, company officials reported.
Move Inc. reported a $4 million annual loss in 2007 and a fourth-quarter loss of $5.3 million.
The company’s stock was trading at $2.37 per share as of 11:56 a.m. Eastern Time today, down 6 cents compared with Thursday’s closing price of $2.43 per share.
***
What’s your opinion? Leave your comments below or send a
letter to the editor.
