Airbnb Hires Amazon Prime Leader to Head Its Homes Business
Photo Credit: Airbnb has hired Amazon's Greg Greeley as its new president of its homes division. Pictured is Greeley staying in an Airbnb listing in San Francisco. Airbnb
Skift Take
Can Greeley do for Airbnb Homes what he did with Amazon Prime? And if yes, is that, ultimately, a good thing? Is his appointment a sign that Airbnb is moving even further away from hospitality and gravitating that much closer to just being like any other massive online travel giant?
Airbnb's aspirations of becoming a true end-to-end platform and a dominant travel brand got a significant boost with the company's latest major executive appointment.
The company announced Tuesday that it is hiring Greg Greeley, an 18-year Amazon veteran responsible for creating Amazon's wildly popular Amazon Prime membership service, to head its Homes division. In his role as president, Greeley will oversee Airbnb Plus, Airbnb Collections (homes that are identified for certain travel types/occasions), the Superhost program, and the upcoming Superguest program, and he will report directly to CEO Brian Chesky.
Homes represent the core of the $31 billion company's business, and since June 2017, this business unit has been personally overseen by Chesky and Airbnb vice president of product and homes operations, Vlad Loktev.
Greeley begins his new position at Airbnb March 18, and it's likely that his experience in building Amazon Prime was a major determining factor in his appointm
