Housing.com names Reliance Jio's Nikhil Rungta marketing head

Housing.com has hired Nikhil Rungta as chief marketing officer in the latest top-level appointment at the realty portal.

Rungta joins SoftBank-backed Housing.com from telecom company Reliance Jio, where he was senior vice president of marketing.

"His rich experience will be a valuable addition to Housing.com's growth plans and senior management team," Jason Kothari, chief business officer at Housing.com, said in a statement.

Rungta has also worked with Google, Yebhi.com, Yatra.com and McCann Erickson. In 2009, he was named Google's first India CMO, a position he held for four years.

Housing.com, owned by Mumbai-based Locon Solutions Pvt Ltd, had gone through several months of top-level turmoil concluding with the unceremonious exit of CEO Rahul Yadav in June. Since then, Rishabh Gupta has been running the show as interim chief.

An operating committee headed by Jonathan Bullock, a representative of the lead investor SoftBank, has been overseeing the company's operations for the past six months.

Recent news reports indicate that the startup laid off 600 employees to trim costs. Housing.com maintains that it cut 160 jobs.

New hires The online realty firm has been strengthening its upper deck after Yadav's exit.

Last week, it appointed Nandini Mehta as general counsel. Before that, the firm named Mani Rangarajan its CFO. Rangarajan is a Silicon Valley veteran and has worked with several startups as well as large companies such as Citigroup and Yahoo.

In August, Housing.com hired Valiant Entertainment's co-founder Jason Kothari as chief business officer, a position that had remained vacant after Trip Wagoner, former Groupon MD, left early this year.

The Indian online realty market is dominated by Info Edge's 99acres and Times group-owned MagicBricks. PropTiger, CommonFloor, Housing.com and IndiaProperty are among other major players.

PropTiger is 30 per cent owned by News Corp, which acquired the parent of this website in March.