The UK’s No.2 hybrid agency Yopa has revealed its new CEO, former Purplebricks senior Verona Frankish, making it one of the few big UK firms to have a female leader.

Frankish has worked within the property industry for almost 20 years, beginning her career in high street retail before moving into mortgages, rising to become MAB’s business development director.

During her seven years at MAB, Frankish worked closely with a number of the UKs biggest estate agency brands as well as many of the hybrid agents, helping them to maximise their revenue.

This included working with the Bruce brothers to build the Purplebricks mortgage proposition back in 2014 prior to launch.

In 2018 she moved from MAB to Purplebricks, where she took responsibility for mortgages, lettings and conveyancing, as a member of the executive team.

Yopa says it has chosen Frankish partly because of her industry profile and experience but also because she’s a digital advocate with extensive experience in improving customer processes through technology.

“I am delighted to join the team at Yopa for the next stage of its journey,” says Frankish.

“The team have done an incredible job in recent years in growing the business and setting it up for future success. I am privileged to have the opportunity to lead Yopa through the next stage of its evolution.”

Freddie Cornes, Yopa’s MD and former CFO, has left the business to move onto a new opportunity.

He has successfully led the expansion of Yopa over the last three years and oversaw over 100% growth in revenues, increased market share and reduction in the cost base.

Grenville Turner (pictured), a non-executive director of Yopa says: “Freddie has achieved an enormous amount, however, he indicated he wanted to move onto a new challenge.

“His departure is a source of regret, but we fully respect his decision. We thank him for his fantastic work over the past three years.

“Verona brings a wealth of relevant experience to the role and an extensive understanding of the U.K. residential property market. We are delighted to be able to appoint such an outstanding candidate to our growing leadership team.”

In November, Cornes revealed that the company had secured ‘significant’ extra funding on top of the approximately £91 million it has received from its backers, who include the investment arms of Savills and the Daily Mail.