Ahead of its rumoured IPO, the home-sharing start-up has hired a new CFO. Replacing Ellie Mertz, who served as interim head of finance for the last 10 months, Dave Stephenson leaves Amazon after 17 years to join the hospitality giant.
It is not the first time this year that Airbnb has poached an Amazon executive. Greg Greeley, Amazon Prime Vice President was hired by the home-sharing start-up in March.
Greeley spent 18 years under Jeff Bezos leadership. Stephenson begins his journey in January and he will report directly to the CEO, Brian Chesky.
Who is Dave Stephenson?
He spent nearly two decades at Amazon, most recently as VP and Chief Financial Officer of Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer Organization. Stephenson time at the world biggest e-commerce company was interrupted between 2011 and 2013.
In those two years, he took the leadership of Big Fish Games, a casual gaming company based in Seattle. After sharing the quarterly revenue report for the first time in its history, Airbnb is now another step closer to an IPO in 2019. Dave Stephenson brings with him a thorough knowledge of public companies and played a role in Amazon’s biggest acquisitions, Whole Food and Zappos.
Since it was created, in 2008, Airbnb became one of the most valuable private companies in the world, with more than 4,000 employees and valued at $31 billion. The IPO is expected June 30, 2019. The new year will bring to public two of the largest IPOs of the decade, with Uber in the run to the public markets.
