HomeAway promoted Jon Gray to vice president of its North America operations, and he will oversee HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com.
Gray, who was HomeAway's third employee in 2004 and most recently served as senior director of North America marketing, replaces Alex de Belloy, who held the title of senior vice president, North America, and is leaving the company.
Brent Bellm, HomeAway's chief operating officer, tied Belloy's departure to the December 26 expiration of HomeAway's IPO lock-up period. Some 180 days after HomeAway's IPO, directors, executive officers and the selling stockholders were to become free to sell or dispose of their shares.
"As any company enters the end of its lock-up period, some turnover is expected from its longest-tenured employees," Bellm says. "In this particular instance, Alexis de Belloy provided us several months advance warning of his career plans."
HomeAway found de Belloy's replacement internally.
"HomeAway has a wealth of internal talent and did not need to consider outside recruiting," Bellm says. "Jon Gray was selected from several strong internal candidates, and we had plenty of time to transition fully with Alexis’s support."
The transition occurs as HomeAway tells potential investors that "industry disruption provides numerous growth opportunities."
Current plans for the company, which boasts of market-leading positions in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Brazil, include developing a single network for its vacation-rental operations, and improving the user experience and its e-commerce capabilities.
Future plans call for the company to "go mainstream," HomeAway says, as it hopes to make a big push to transition people who currently rent vacation homes offline into online renters.
And, in addition to expanding into ancillary products such as travel insurance, HomeAway hopes to make a major foray into online travel agency distribution.