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The professional property management company for holiday homes and short-term rentals has revealed a bolstered leadership team.
Alvan Aiau Yong is moving into the newly created role, with the responsibility of overseeing the company’s 40-strong local host network, as well as the acquisition of multiple at-scale short-term rental operators.
Hometime stated the new chief operating officer (COO) will be “instrumental” in supporting its existing network of hosts and managing on-the-ground operations, such as cleaning and maintenance, and representing the short-term rental industry. The announcement also comes off the back of a successful $10 million cap raise earlier this year.
Aiau Yong comes from the business PayCargo, where he held the role of Asia-Pacific general manager. Prior to that, he spent more than five years with Airbnb as the supply lead for Australia and New Zealand.
In that role, he was responsible for recruiting, onboarding and optimising hosts.
According to the incoming COO, he’s been a long-time fan of Dave Thompson and Billy Crock, who founded Hometime – having met them while still an employee at Airbnb.
“When I first met Billy and Dave in 2018 at the Airbnb Sydney office, I remember saying to one of my colleagues that ‘Hometime would make a great investment’,” he shared.
“They figured out how to scale the most operationally intensive part of short-term rental through technology, process and expertise. It was more impressive that they could maintain amazing quality across their properties – evidenced by great guest reviews across multiple platforms.”
That meant that “when the opportunity came up to be part of Hometime, the decision was easy,” Aiau Yong stated.
For him, it’s also a “homecoming” of sorts, commenting that he is “delighted to be back in the travel business and even more excited I get to work with a team I’ve admired for so long who are relentless at growth and quality without compromise”.
Praising their enthusiasm and sincerity, he continued: “I’m so honoured to support our journey to build and consolidate the short-term rental and property management industry of the highest quality.”
CEO and co-founder, Billy Crock, has called the COO’s alignment with the company a “huge coup”.
“We couldn’t be more delighted to welcome Alvan into the Hometime family,” he shared.
“The feeling for us has always been mutual and to bring his depth of local market experience into our business is a pivotal moment.”
“It also signals the completion of building our executive leadership team, which over the last 18 months has seen us add seats in marketing, finance and HR.”
“Hometime is on a market-leading growth trajectory and Alvan’s hire bolsters our efforts significantly,” Crock concluded.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grace Ormsby
Grace is a journalist across Momentum property and investment brands. Grace joined Momentum Media in 2018, bringing with her a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) from the University of Newcastle. She’s passionate about delivering easy to digest information and content relevant to her key audiences and stakeholders.
