Zoopla Limited welcomes Mark Witherspoon as Strategic Development Director
21st Apr 2009
Zoopla Limited, the UK's leading residential property values resource and latest entrant to the AVM (Automated Valuation Model) market is pleased to announce the immediate appointment of Mark Witherspoon in the role of Strategic Development Director.
Witherspoon comes to Zoopla with extensive experience of the AVM market and related data services, having been formerly CEO of both Hometrack and UKValuation, where he pioneered the adoption of AVMs by UK lenders and helped develop the market for AVMs which now account for over 25% of mortgage valuations in the UK. Most recently Witherspoon has built a unique client base, consulting on data-driven risk management for a range of lenders and corporations and will divide his time between serving these clients and his role at Zoopla.
Working closely with Zoopla's Analytics Team and reporting to Zoopla CEO Alex Chesterman, Witherspoon will be responsible for overseeing and shaping Zoopla's B2B data services proposition, leveraging its unique and proprietary data to provide lenders with the UK's most accurate, market leading automated property valuation tool. His role at Zoopla will allow Witherspoon to utilise his longstanding relationships in the industry to work closely with the UK's leading financial service players to help them better manage their portfolios, make better-informed lending decisions and better understand their risk.
Earlier in his career, Witherspoon also spent a decade at Barclays in executive and directorial roles where he served within the Barclays mortgage business. As Head of Products he created the centralised debt recovery unit, created Barclays Direct Mortgages and the role of Mortgage Specialist within the retail branch network and also held the position as Head of Strategy & Planning for retail banking products.
Witherspoon said:
"I am delighted to be joining the team at Zoopla and am looking forward to developing the proposition and leading further innovation in the property valuation data services field. With Zoopla's sophisticated modelling and unique and proprietary data about UK homes, I am excited about the opportunity to provide clients with access to the Zoopla data for origination, revaluation and risk-assessment purposes."
Commenting on the appointment, Zoopla.co.uk CEO Alex Chesterman said:
"We are thrilled to welcome Mark to our team at this stage in our development. His exceptional expertise in the mortgage finance and AVM fields will further help to solidify Zoopla's position as the leading provider of property value data in the UK and establish Zoopla's position as a leading B2B provider of property value data services across the UK."
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For further information, please contact PR Team on pr@zoopla.co.uk or +44 (0)20 3873 8770.
About Zoopla Data Services
Zoopla is a unique property resource offering tools to help clients make better-informed lending and property value related decisions. We offer the most comprehensive source of residential property market information in the UK to give clients an advantage in the property market.
By providing value estimates for EVERY UK home along with property listings, Zoopla has become the UK's fastest growing property website and largest and most active property community, with over a million user contributions to supplement data in the public domain in the past 12 months alone.
The Zoopla AVM employs a proprietary algorithm that we have developed by analysing millions of property data points and works by comparing relationships between home prices, economic trends and property characteristics at micro geographic levels. Our valuations are constantly refined, using the most recent data available and a variety of statistical methodologies, in order to provide the most current information on any home.
Zoopla Limited is a privately held company with a highly experienced and proven management team, backed by well-respected angel investors and leading venture capital firms Atlas Venture (atlasventure.com) and Octopus Ventures (octopusventures.com).