Company News
Building a world-class executive team and board of directors
Reading Time — 4 minutes
October 14, 2019
By Eric Wu
Reading Time — 4 minutes
October 14, 2019
At Opendoor, giving people the freedom to move between cities, neighborhoods, and homes is at the heart of everything we do. We’ve dedicated the last five years in service of inventing and designing a customer experience that is far more simple and elegant than what exists today and in turn have helped over 50,000 customers buy and sell a home. That being said, our work isn’t easy or quick. Building something important requires persistence, resourcefulness, invention, and a relentless focus on our customers. And finding missionaries that want to join us in pursuit of delivering our vision to customers is also not easy or quick.
That is why today, I’m excited to announce the addition of new leaders to the Opendoor executive team and board of directors. Their experiences from transformational companies like Amazon, Netflix, Hulu and others will be invaluable as we continue to redefine the way people buy and sell homes.
Julie Todaro has joined Opendoor as our new President of Homes and Services, overseeing market operations, customer experience and home services. In recent years, she’s consulted with a number of high-growth companies, including Airbnb, Coupang and others. Julie also spent more than 13 years at Amazon, where she held leadership positions within finance and retail, as well as running Amazon Canada, North American books and consumer electronics categories. Her deep experience building operational excellence at fast-growing organizations will be invaluable for the next stage of Opendoor.
Tom Willerer has joined us as our Chief Product Officer, overseeing product and design. Most recently, Tom was a Partner at Venrock, investing in early stage startups for the firm’s consumer-facing product portfolio. Prior to Venrock, he was Chief Product Officer at Coursera, where he helped to scale the company from $1 million to $100 million in revenue. He also led product teams as Vice President of Product at Netflix, where he helped to expand the company’s subscribership from 8 million U.S.-only users to over 40 million globally. Tom’s entrepreneurial spirit and product leadership are the perfect mix as we continue to build an end-to-end product experience where anyone can buy, sell or trade-in a home at the click of a button.
Gautam Gupta, who has been at Opendoor for the last two years, will be our Chief Business Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Gautam will be responsible for finance, capital markets, business development, corporate development, growth and marketing. Gautam has done an incredible job growing and scaling the business to where we are today. As Opendoor continues to grow, I’m excited for him to bring his passion for the business and focus on execution to these new areas.
I’m also thrilled to share that Carrie Wheeler and Jason Kilar have joined the Opendoor board of directors.
Carrie Wheeler is an experienced investor and board member and has been on the boards of brands like J.Crew, Dollar Tree, Petco, and Neiman Marcus. Carrie was a partner at TPG Capital for more than two decades, where she led investments across their retail and consumer practices and helped operate businesses with large real estate, capital markets, and inventory components. She brings a unique mix of financial, operational, and capital markets experience to the Opendoor board.
Jason Kilar brings a deep understanding of building technology and operational businesses to the Opendoor board. He was the founding CEO of Hulu and within five years oversaw its development from original concept to an award-winning premium streaming service. He has also held a variety of senior leadership roles at Amazon, including leading Worldwide Application Software and running Amazon’s North American media businesses, which included the company’s books, music and video categories. In addition to Opendoor, he currently sits on the boards of Habitat for Humanity International, Univision and Wealthfront.
We’ve proudly helped more than 50,000 families, couples and individuals buy the home of their dreams or sell the house they’re living in, giving them the power and freedom to move on to the next chapter in their lives. At Opendoor, we know that creating joyful customer experiences starts with great leaders and teams, and I couldn’t be more excited to join forces with Julie, Tom, GG, Carrie, and Jason to rebuild how people buy and sell a home.
