Mobile.de has named Olaf Reichel as its new director of advertising sales, a new position focused on expanding the company’s media and advertising partnerships. 

In his new position, Reichel will oversee the strategic development of Mobile.de’s media sales business, strengthening relationships with agencies and direct clients while driving new advertising initiatives. 

“With his expertise, he will drive our extensive advertising business forward and strengthen Mobile.de as the leading platform in the automotive sector,” said chief of partnerships and media Anthony Saines.

Reichel has more than 15 years of experience in media distribution and advertising technology, specializing in retail and commerce media and programmatic advertising. He has held management positions at Scout24, subsidiaries of Ceconomy AG and Metro AG, and founded the consulting firm Retail Media Services.

“The automotive market is undergoing profound change, and Mobile.de plays a key role in this. My focus will be on building sustainable partnerships, driving innovative product development, and delivering excellent customer experiences,” he said.

The announcement comes as the Sweden-based private equity firm EQT is reportedly considering a bid for Mobile.de, which is owned by Adevinta and based in Berlin. EQT has held preliminary talks with Blackstone and Permira, which led the consortium that acquired Adevinta and took it private in June last year, the Financial Times (FT) reports, citing “people familiar with the matter.”

Hamburg-based Xing, a subsidiary of New Work SE, has announced a management reshuffle as it pivots from a professional network to a job board.

At the end of this year, managing director Thomas Kindler (above) will step down after two years in the role, according to New Work’s news release. He will be succeeded by Simone Reif (below), who joins from Stepstone as MD and CRO. She was at the latter company for 21 years, ending her time their as MD for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Meanwhile, Philip Brandecker and Mario Kühlkamp have been named as COO and chief sales officer, respectively, while former Stepstone CEO Ralf Baumann will join Xing as senior advisor.

New Work CEO Henning Rönneberg commented: “I am extremely pleased that we have succeeded in recruiting three proven industry experts in Simone Reif, Ralf Baumann and Mario Kühlkamp. Together with Philip Brandecker, they will further develop Xing strategically. All three represent customer focus, problem-solving expertise and have demonstrated their ability to successfully build and lead high-performing recruitment organizations.”

Rönneberg, who was promoted to CEO in June, praised Kindler’s contribution to the company’s turnaround: “He repositioned Xing, reorganized the company and played a crucial role in re-establishing Xing as a relevant player in the recruiting market.”

Kindler wrote in a LinkedIn post: “The past five years have been intense and deeply meaningful. Together we have redefined Xing’s strategy, fundamentally restructured the organization, and laid the foundation for a successful German jobs network. I’m proud that we’ve brought Xing back into the position of a relevant recruiting player — and that the company is now ready to move forward with confidence.”

Founded in 2003, Xing recently came into the hands of Munich-based Burda Digital as part of its acquisition of New Work SE. Burda is reportedly preparing to sell Kununu, an employer-rating site acquired by New Work in 2019.

Xing operates in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The company says it hosts 20 million members, 1 million job ads and 20,000 recruiters.

The automotive retailer confirmed the layoffs to RichmondBizSense, saying, “We recently conducted a comprehensive review of our CECs [customer experience centers] and have determined that the reorganization of the CECs will help us best serve our customers and strengthen our business for the future. After implementing several processes and technological improvements to streamline our customer communication support function, we are now able to realign key work areas, resulting in the consolidation of some teams.”

Impacted employees will be offered severance pay, career support services, and the opportunity to apply for open positions elsewhere in the company, according to the report.

The layoffs come amid broader financial headwinds. A sharp Sept. 25 stock sell-off, allegedly the result of an unexpected jump in loan losses at CarMax Auto Finance, has resulted in more than one legal firm alleging securities fraud.

CarMax has more than 250 retail locations throughout the U.S., and over 30,000 employees. Founded in 1993, it is considered the largest marketplace for used vehicles in the U.S.

Source: LinkedIn

Varun Sanghi, who has been associated with the company for over ten years, has played a pivotal role in its growth, CarTrade said in a regulatory disclosure. His designation in the company will change to CSO and “senior management personnel,” effective Nov. 1.

Having joined CarTrade as a product manager, Varun was instrumental in launching its auto finance product. Subsequently, his role expanded to include corporate finance, business development, and strategic initiatives. Varun reportedly played a key role in CarTrade’s acquisition of OLX India from Prosus in August 2023.

Additionally, Varun has been leading CarTrade Labs — an innovation hub launched in June to focus on generative AI and data science — in addition to serving as a director on the boards of OLX India, Shriram Automall (a used-car auction business), and CarTrade Foundation (the company’s CSR arm).

CarTrade Tech posted INR1.9 billion ($22 million) in operating revenue for the three months to September 2025 (Q2 FY25-26), up 25.4% year on year. It recorded about 85 million average monthly unique visitors in Q2, with 95% of the traffic organic.

CarTrade has a presence in more than 500 physical locations across India through Shriram Automall, CarWale abSure, and OLX India franchisees.

She assumed the role on Oct. 22, 2025, working alongside co-CEO Novianto Tjhin, according to a regulatory disclosure. Daisy joined the company as chairman in February this year.

She is now primarily responsible for strategy at the company. With more than two decades of experience, she specializes in project management, enterprise resource planning and business strategy. Companies she has worked for include Chak Ho Group, Fu Kwan Warehouse Co. Ltd. and Zog Group Ltd.

Rhonda Wong, who has held the roles of co-CEO and CFO — as well as being a director of the company — since its inception in 2016, will continue to lead the company’s operations in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore, according to her LinkedIn post.

Wong’s new job title is “CEO for operations in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines,” the Business Times reports.

“Wong’s resignation was not a result of any disagreement with the company’s operations, policies or procedures,” OhMyHome said, adding that it would be filling the vacant CFO role soon.

“Chill everyone! I’m still running OhMyHome! So many texts today — my phone is low battery at 10:40am. Thank you for the love!” she wrote on LinkedIn.

“The listed entity on NASDAQ now has its own professional management team in place to oversee corporate operations, while I continue focusing on growing our core business and serving our customers.”

Founded in 2016 by sisters Rhonda and Race Wong (the latter is also an actress and singer), OhMyHome also operates in Malaysia and the Philippines. Offering home sale, rental and renovation services, it reportedly manages more than 12,000 properties.

In 2024, OhMyHome’s net loss narrowed by 20.9% year on year to $3.4 million. In December last year, it launched HomerAI, which it described as “a one-stop shop for all home-related needs.”

Narayan will lead Apna’s efforts to scale, strengthen employer partnerships, and accelerate the adoption of AI-powered hiring, a news release stated. He will be working closely with Nirmit Parikh, founder and group CEO of Apna.

Before joining Apna, Narayan was CEO of the staffing vertical of TeamLease, an India-based HR tech company and the parent of job board FreshersWorld — which, incidentally, is a competitor to Apna in a few areas of the recruitment value chain.

Apna said that in a 24-year career predominantly in financial and operational leadership, Narayan has worked with companies such as Vodafone-Idea, Cisco, and Bharti Airtel, consistently demonstrating the ability to build and scale large, complex organisations, forge deep industry partnerships, and deliver sustainable business outcomes.

Narayan said, “What excites me most is seeing how thousands of companies are now building and deploying their own AI recruiting agents on Apna’s platform, automating hiring conversations and finding the right candidates faster than ever before.”

The statement accords with Apna’s recent official launch of Blue Machines, a service that enables enterprises to deploy multilingual AI voice agents at scale. In August, Apna launched a Blue Machine-built multilingual AI calling agent that integrates with job listings.

On the core operations front, it debuted an AI-powered job interview preparation tool in June, before unveiling an AI-powered recruiter verification system to combat job scams, called ‘Apna Safety.’ These products are all developed in-house, part of the company’s proprietary stack.

Founded in 2019, Apna is headquartered in Bengaluru and has a presence in more than 900 Indian cities. It says more than 50 million job-seekers and 700,000 employers have used its services to date. It reduced its losses by 57.3% year on year to INR513 million ($5.8 million) in the 12 months to March 2024.

Fernando Fanton; Source: LinkedIn

Dubai-based real estate marketplace Property Finder has announced the appointment of Fernando Fanton as CPTO. He joined the company in June, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Fanton joins Property Finder from Munzo Bank, where he was chief product officer. Earlier in his career, he was CPTO at both Latin America-based ‘super app’ Rappi and delivery app Just Eat.

He is also a founding partner in Brazil-based Karvi, an auto marketplace for used cars in Latin America.

Fanton has a bachelor of applied science degree in engineering and computer science from the Technical Institute of Buenos Aires and an MBA in finance and marketing from the Wharton School. He was also a finalist at the Math Olympics XXI in 2001.

Fanton’s responsibilities at Property Finder will include designing and executing a long-term product and technology strategy and creating, launching and managing new products and services.

Earlier this month, the company revealed that it had raised $250 million in debt financing.

Michal Buzek

The goal of the new division is to unite data professionals across Seznam, enabling them to share knowledge and leverage new technologies such as GenAI and the company’s recently launched data platform.

As head of the division, Buzek oversees data strategy, tool implementation, AI integration, and the development of a company-wide data marketplace. His responsibilities also include standardizing analytics across teams and making data more accessible, reliable, and easy to interpret, according to the company’s blog post.

Buzek joins Seznam from Heureka Group, where he spent the past eight years as Chief Data Officer, leading a 20-member data team across nine countries. From 2010 to 2017, he worked at Seznam as head of the analytics department. Outside of work, he is a father of three, an active athlete, and co-founder of the family-oriented project Overenorodici.cz.

Seznam owns general classified site Sbazar.cz, auto site Sauto.cz, and real estate site Sreality.cz. Sauto and Sreality are the largest auto and real estate classified websites in the Czech Republic, respectively, while Sbazar.cz is the second-largest general goods classified website, after Bazos.cz. In September, Sauto.cz received 5.5 million visits, while Sreality.cz counted 9. million and Sbazar.cz 3.1 million, as measured by SimilarWeb.

Drom has had a c-to-c lending service for many years, one of its top managers Mikhail Shchetinin said. However, is was not suitable for dealers who prefer to provide their finance through their own brokers and do not welcome clients with third-party loans, Shchetinin said. Drom was looking for a partner to provide a similar solution for the b-to-c segment that would be equally convenient for the client and for setting up end-to-end analytics for all parties involved in the transaction.

Balans-Platforma has been developing and implementing digital services to simplify F&I processes since 2017, said Alexey Borodavin, head of the auto vertical at Balans-Platforma.

“Our goal is to create a fast and convenient solution that meets the current customer demand for a car loan in just a few clicks. No lines, no endless forms, and no multiple trips to the dealership. Drom, as a leading classifieds platform, supported us in this endeavor and enabled us to implement the service, which has already attracted over 10,000 customers,” Borodavin told Autostat agency.

For the user, the application process for any type of loan is roughly the same. When they click the ‘buy on credit’ button in the ad, they will be taken to a simple form from Balans-Platforma, which is filled out almost entirely automatically if the applicant had undergone verification through Gosuslugi online public services. The form automatically pulls key data from the client’s digital profile. Since this data had been already verified, the client does not need to go through a lengthy application process and multiple visits to banks and dealers, Drom’s Shchetinin said.

Clients come to the dealership once with a pre-structured transaction that only needs a finishing touch, said Alexey Borodavin of Balans-Platforma. “For dealers and auto makers, this is a way to increase sales and maintain desired margins, as the loan application questionnaires are based on the rates and conditions agreed by the dealers. We offer banks an electronic transaction service, which improves the bank’s economics by eliminating the need for a dealer representative to travel to sign the transaction. Our services also eliminate data errors and all the paperwork,” Borodavin said.

Going forward, Drom plans to let users know the loan amount available to them when they start looking for a car, without even having to fill out credit forms. Balans-Platforma aims to make the service available to 15,000 – 18,000 customers per month by the end of the year.

Adam Simon (left) and Michał Wróblewski (right)

Adam Simon has taken on the role of senior head of business development at Motors Professionals Europe. With 16 years of experience in the automotive sector, including managerial sales and aftersales roles at BMW and Audi, he will focus on developing new solutions for partners, enhancing site capabilities, and building long-term customer relationships across European markets.

Meanwhile, Michał Wróblewski has been named head of sales, responsible for managing services offered to Poland’s largest dealership groups. Drawing on his background at Skoda and Audi import structures as well as his experience as commercial director at a leading Volkswagen Group dealership network, he will tailor Otomoto’s offerings to evolving market trends and partner expectations.

“Otomoto is entering the next stage of its development. The platform is increasingly focused on expanding its new car offering, strengthening brand recognition, and leveraging international collaboration within the OLX Group. These personnel changes are an important element of this strategy — they will support further growth, reinforce Otomoto’s position in the digital automotive market, and translate into even better experiences for both customers and buyers,” the company said in its announcement.

Otomoto received 44 million visits in September and is far ahead of other auto sites in Poland in terms of web traffic. These include Autoplac’s Autoplac.pl, with 1.6 million visits, and Abris Capital Partners’ Aaaauto.pl, with 1.1million visits, according to SimilarWeb.

Source: Vend Marketplaces

Norway-based Vend Marketplaces has named Yale Varty as chief commercial officer (CCO), effective Dec 15.

“Vend is entering a new phase of growth with a clear focus on further commercial development,” said the company, announcing the hire.

“In line with this, we have been looking for a leader with solid experience in data-driven marketing, an international background and broad commercial expertise — someone who can bring fresh perspectives and build on the strong commercial foundation established under the leadership of Ruben Søgaard, former EVP marketing and sales.”

Varty joins Vend Marketplaces’ executive management team from Lyst, a global fashion marketplace and aggregator, where he was also CCO. Prior to that he worked at AI company Supernormal.

Vend Marketplaces said that Varty had “played a key strategic leadership role when [Lyst] was acquired by the Japanese e-commerce group Zozo earlier this year.”

It added that he “brings more than 15 years of international leadership experience across ecommerce, travel, fashion and consulting, including senior roles at Expedia, ASOS, HostelWorld and Boden.”

“Varty’s background and experience give him unique expertise in driving growth, customer engagement and digital transformation in highly competitive international markets.”

Vend Marketplaces CEO Christian Printzell Halvorsen commented that Varty’s “wide-ranging experience — including leadership at Lyst — makes him an exceptional addition to our leadership team. He combines strategic vision with operational expertise, and his appointment marks an important step in strengthening Vend’s commercial leadership for the future.”

Originally from Seattle, Varty will relocate from London to Copenhagen, Denmark, to assume his new role.

“Vend has strong brands and growing demand across its markets,” he said. “There is a major opportunity to enhance customer experience and loyalty, sharpen the verticals, and make full use of the platform strategy. I look forward to working with the team to deliver on this next phase of growth.”

“I’ve been fortunate to work across marketplaces in travel, ecommerce and fashion. I hope to leverage that breadth as a strength, to connect the dots, adapt quickly, and work with the Vend team through change.”

Vend Marketplaces, formerly known as Schibsted Marketplaces, owns marketplace brands Finn, Blocket, DBA, Bilbasen, Oikotie and Tori. It operates marketplaces across four core verticals — mobility, recommerce, real estate and jobs — across the Nordic region.

Matthew Crawford

Crawford is leaving of his own accord “to pursue another opportunity outside of the company,” the filing states. He will support a transition plan while the company starts looking for a replacement.

Crawford joined Cars.com in January 2022 as chief product officer and had “innovation” tacked onto his title in June last year.

Before Cars.com, Crawford worked six years at Sysco Labs, the R&D branch of the global food services company, rising to the position of VP of commercial technology.

Before Sysco, he worked at SpareFoot, a storage-facility marketplace; Civitas Learning, a software vendor for higher education; SolarWinds, an IT and network management company; and Front Gate Tickets, an online ticketing provider.

Crawford has a masters of science in technology commercialization from Texas McCombs School of Business in Austin.

Revenue at Cars Commerce, owner of Cars.com — the No.2 autos site in the U.S. — stood at $179 million in Q2 2025, virtually unchanged year on year.