America doesn’t yet have a new president. But Opendoor does

GoDaddy exec to join as president; Julie Todaro will leave after a year on the job

Andrew Low Ah Kee and Opendoor's Eric Wu (Photos via GoDaddy; Opendoor)
Andrew Low Ah Kee and Opendoor's Eric Wu (Photos via GoDaddy; Opendoor)

Opendoor is shaking up its C-suite — again — ahead of its closely-watched IPO.

On the heels of naming its first chief investment officer, the iBuyer tapped GoDaddy executive Andrew Low Ah Kee as president, co-founder and CEO Eric Wu said in a blog post Thursday. Julie Todaro, Opendoor’s president of homes and services, is taking early retirement after a year on the job.

In the blog post, Wu said Todaro, a former Amazon and Airbnb executive who was a strategic advisor to Opendoor before joining full-time, helped refine its operations, leaving the company “poised to execute in our next chapter as a public company.”

In announcing Low Ah Kee’s role, he said that, “Andrew will be critical to driving operational excellence across our business, especially as we expand into new markets and deepen our product offerings.”

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Founded in 2014, Opendoor uses algorithms to price, buy and sell single-family homes. In September, it said it would go public in a merger with investor Chamath Palihapitiya’s blank-check company.

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In an investor presentation and its IPO filing, Opendoor said it sold nearly 18,000 homes last year, generating $4.7 billion in revenue. But it lost $339 million in 2019. The deal with Palihapitiya’s special purpose acquisition company will give Opendoor $1 billion in cash.

The company plans to use that war chest to grow. In the investor presentation, Opendoor said by capturing 4 percent of the U.S. housing market, it can be a $50 billion company.

Over the past year, Opendoor has bulked up its leadership team. In addition to Todaro, it tapped Netflix alum Tom Willerer as chief product officer and Carrie Wheeler, a former partner at TPG, as CFO.

Last month, it hired Daniel Morillo, a former exec from Ken Griffin’s Citadel, as chief investment officer. In that role, he’ll lead Opendoor’s pricing and data science teams.

At GoDaddy, Low Ah Kee served as chief operating officer, leading a team of 7,500. Previously, he worked at KKR Capstone and Boston Consulting Group.