SINGAPORE, 7th AUGUST 2014 – PropertyGuru Group, Asia’s leading online property group, is pleased to announce Lewis Ng as the new Managing Director for its Singapore operations.
In his new role as Managing Director, Lewis will lead a team of more than 50 staff, including telemarketers, customer care officers, sales operation staff as well as developers, agencies and agent-related marketing and field sales representatives. With the current slowdown of the Singapore property market, his challenge for the next two years will be to identify innovative solutions to provide business associates with higher quality leads.
Steve Melhuish, Co-Founder and CEO of PropertyGuru Group said, “We’re delighted to welcome Lewis into the PropertyGuru family. He brings an impressive digital media, business development and leadership track record, which will further increase our market leadership with both the consumers and the property advertiser clients.”
Prior to his new appointment, Lewis was the Commercial Director of TripAdvisor for the APAC region, where he was one of the first employees in Singapore starting with zero revenue. Under his leadership, Lewis was responsible for the opening of several APAC offices, including Singapore, China, Japan, Australia, and India. During his stint at TripAdvisor, he built a team of over 85 people regionally, delivering strong marketing and revenue growth by triple digits for three years consecutively. Prior to TripAdvisor, Lewis led a fully local sales team at Global Yellow Pages’ Singapore office. In his role, he strategized the diversification and evolution of the successful traditional business into new media, including online and mobile platforms. Lewis has also worked in News Digital Media, part of News Corporation, one of the world’s largest media companies providing strategic counsel on product, pricing, go to market, and competitive intelligence.
Lewis recounted his experience when he first relocated to Singapore, “PropertyGuru has been my first and foremost resource since back when I was looking for my first rental property. Having since moved twice, and finally buying my first property in Singapore, I have been impressed with PropertyGuru’s product offerings to both the consumers and the industry,” said Lewis. “I am excited to be part of such a dynamic company and am keen on working with the team to fully maximise the potential of the brand and to further the lead of the number one property site in Singapore.”
About PropertyGuru Group
PropertyGuru Group is Asia’s leading online property portal group used by almost 11 million property buyers, viewing over 91 million property pages and generating over 350,000 enquiries for real estate developer and agent advertisers – every month – across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. The Group has developed and launched 16 mobile applications in four countries and three languages. At the end of 2013, the Group recorded 1,357,946 downloaded mobile apps, resulting in a slew of three MOBEX awards sweep.
Headquartered in Singapore, PropertyGuru was founded in 2006 by two entrepreneurs with a vision to simplify the property search process and help buyers, sellers and investors make better property decisions faster. Taking advantage of Asia’s growing affluence, property demand and online explosion, the company received its first VC investment funding in 2008 and secured approximately $60m investment in 2012 from Deutsche Telekom, South East Asia’s largest digital investment to date.
PropertyGuru was also the first to integrate its website with social media, first to launch Singapore’s only dedicated
property newspaper – with over 100,000 copies circulated island-wide every month – and it has also developed a
property events platform, with approximately 30 shows held annually across four countries, addressing 30,000
potential property buyers on the ground.
ABOUT STEVE MELHUISH
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Steve is an award-winning entrepreneur. In the last two decades, Steve built profitable companies throughout Asia and Europe. In 2006 along with his partner Jani Rautiainen, founded PropertyGuru. Under the auspice of this newly established brand, PropertyGuru provided a one-stop online shop for the listing and sale of residential and commercial properties to individual and institutional buyers and investors. Prior to Steve’s current role, he held executive positions in various venture capital firms including Skype, AOL, Virgin Media, Vodafone, Extreme Media, iPass and Ariadne Capital. Steve’s expertise in leading global teams resulted in a US$500 million turnover for a business unit for Cable & Wireless. In 2007, Steve was awarded the Spirit of Enterprise Award in recognition of his contributions to entrepreneurship in Singapore. Steve is a non-executive director for two other firms, an angel investor and member of the Business Angels Network South East Asia
For more queries, contact:
Harris Lim
Hill+Knowlton Strategies
6319 3329
harris.lim@hkstrategies.com
Rachel Lim
Hill+Knowlton Strategies
6390 3315
rachel.lim@hkstrategies.com