Real estate entrepreneur and 30-year industry veteran Alain Pinel has moved to Silicon Valley-based Intero Real Estate Services as its senior vice president and managing officer. He will be in charge of Intero’s estate and luxury markets in the U.S. and abroad.
"Alain is a seasoned real estate veteran with tremendous knowledge and experience in the industry," said Gino Blefari, Intero’s founder, president and CEO, in a statement.
"His extraordinary level of professionalism will continue to lead and expand the Intero brand as a household name locally and abroad."
Formerly senior vice president and general manager of William Raveis Real Estate, Pinel has continually reinvented himself over the course of his long career. He first worked as a journalist in his native France, but after marrying a Californian, he moved to the U.S. and began a career in sales.
He obtained his real estate license in 1976 and worked for Northern California firm Fox & Carskadon Real Estate, quickly moving into management. In 1988, Pinel left the firm and later founded his own brokerage, Alain Pinel Realtors, with two partners.
As founder, chairman, and CEO, Pinel set out to carve a niche for the brokerage by marketing its high-end listings beyond the local area to the rest of the country and abroad.
Shortly thereafter, he sold his interest in the brokerage to his partners. Pinel worked for large real estate company Semifeg in Paris through the end of 1994 before returning to California in 1995 as senior vice president of Coldwell Banker’s San Francisco, Peninsula and Silicon Valley region.
In 2002, he returned to France and started Imminence, an online information-sharing business based on the American multiple listing service model.
He joined William Raveis Real Estate in Massachusetts in 2008, where he remained until the fall of last year.
"I have a passion for this business. I am excited to begin a new project with an outstanding brokerage and a progressive leadership team," Pinel said in a statement.