Ryan O’Hara, the CEO of Move Inc. since January 2015, is leaving the company, owner News Corp announced Thursday. Move is the operator of realtor.com.
Tracey Fellows, who had served as president of global digital real estate at News Corp since November 2018, will serve as the acting CEO during the search for O’Hara’s replacement, News Corp said. In the past, she was CEO of Microsoft Australia for four years.
“O’Hara is taking on a new chief executive position in another industry,” News Corp’s statement said, without giving specifics.
O’Hara became Move’s CEO two months after News Corp bought the business in November 2014. News Corp is a U.S. company spun off from a business founded by Rupert Murdoch. News Corp owns Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, as well as book publisher HarperCollins.
“Ryan has transformed realtor.com, overseeing a period of remarkable growth, with revenues more than doubling during his tenure,” said Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp. “Ryan and the talented team have helped realtor.com more than triple the number of unique users since our acquisition less than five years ago, reaching an all-time record of more than 73 million in May.”
Thomson said he has “no doubt that Tracey will be a brilliant leader at realtor.com while she is at the helm. Tracey’s impact on our digital real estate operations has already been profoundly positive as she has brought extra verve and vision to the businesses.”
O’Hara thanked News Corp’s founder and Thomson in the press release.
“I am grateful to Rupert Murdoch, Robert Thomson and News Corp for affording me the opportunity to lead five different businesses on two continents over two stints with this great company,” said O’Hara.
In 2017, HousingWire named O'Hara to HW Vanguard, citing him as being "instrumental in the unprecedented growth for the home-listing site."
When asked about leadership for a profile then, O'Hara cited the words of former President Calvin Coolidge:
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
