Better.com announced a slew of leadership hires Thursday, breaking an uneasy silence after a tumultuous first half of the year marked by mass layoffs and allegations of misconduct.
The digital lender named Sushil Sharma as the company’s first chief growth officer and former head of customer experience Steve Riddell as new head of sales. The news comes one month after a lawsuit accused CEO Vishal Garg of
The company’s attempt to go public through a merger with special purpose acquisition company Aurora Acquisition Corp. is also pending,
"In only six years, Better has originated nearly $100B of mortgages," Garg said in a press release. "Expanding our team with seasoned pros who are still fast, hungry, and eager will be pivotal to achieving our next phase of growth."
Sharma was most recently chief product officer at LendingTree for three years until last August, according to the statement and his LinkedIn profile. Prior to LendingTree, he was the chief product officer at Match, the online dating service, where he helped the company go public, Better said.
“Better’s mission to make homeownership simpler, faster, and more affordable instantly drew me in,” Sharma said in a press release.
Riddell served as Better’s head of customer experience between November 2019 and January 2021, the company confirmed. Before that, he was the former head of customer experience at online mattress retailer Casper until 2019 and was a former chief sales officer at both Sprint and Blinds.com, a Home Depot company.
Riddell replaces Better’s former second-in-command Sarah Pierce, who left the company in February. Pierce, in a federal whistleblower suit, claimed she was terminated in retaliation over raising concerns over CEO Vishal Garg’s behavior in representing the lender’s financial performance. A case schedule between the parties is due Aug. 17.
The company also named new vice presidents of people, enterprise risk and marketing and promoted its Director of Strategy and Operations Josh Durodola to Head of Better Services.
Ryan Jewison, former Doma vice president of new and national market growth, will serve as head of Better Cover, the firm’s homeowners insurance marketplace. Nick Taylor, longtime executive at Zillow and at sales and marketing firm Modus, was appointed head of Better Real Estate.
The moves represent a sort of culmination of Better’s efforts to reshape its company culture following Garg’s unceremonious firing of 900 workers in a Zoom call in December. Following that call, Garg stepped away from the company for five weeks, and a law firm independently reviewed the company’s culture and suggested it pursue new internal leadership.
