Airbnb Hires Amazon Prime Leader to Head Its Homes Business
Skift Take
Can Greeley do for Airbnb Homes what he did with Amazon Prime? And if yes, is that, ultimately, a good thing? Is his appointment a sign that Airbnb is moving even further away from hospitality and gravitating that much closer to just being like any other massive online travel giant?
Airbnb's aspirations of becoming a true end-to-end platform and a dominant travel brand got a significant boost with the company's latest major executive appointment.
The company announced Tuesday that it is hiring Greg Greeley, an 18-year Amazon veteran responsible for creating Amazon's wildly popular Amazon Prime membership service, to head its Homes division. In his role as president, Greeley will oversee Airbnb Plus, Airbnb Collections (homes that are identified for certain travel types/occasions), the Superhost program, and the upcoming Superguest program, and he will report directly to CEO Brian Chesky.
Homes represent the core of the $31 billion company's business, and since June 2017, this business unit has been personally overseen by Chesky and Airbnb vice president of product and homes operations, Vlad Loktev.
Greeley begins his new position at Airbnb March 18, and it's likely that his experience in building Amazon Prime was a major determining factor in his appointment. However, he also comes to Airbnb without having had any previous hospitality experience.
In a statement, Chesky said, "Even among an amazing and diverse slate of candidates, Greg stood out for his phenomenal customer-first approach, global operations excellence, and a decades-long commitment to developing and mentoring talented leaders."
Greeley said, "Words can't express how excited I am to join the Airbnb team. I've used Airbnb for years, and the chance to work here and expand the positive impact its community is having around the world is a once in a lifetime opportunity."
Bringing an Amazon Approach to Airbnb
Amazon Prime is one of the world's most popular membership programs, and to develop and execute it requires a tremendous amount of operations and logistical expertise, as well as an understanding of appealing directly to consumers. With Prime, Amazon revolutionized e-commerce and extended the company's reach even further into areas far removed from what Amazon originally started with: services such as free grocery delivery from Whole Foods, music, entertainment, complimentary two-day shipping, and more for its members.
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