People on the Move: CoStar elevates finance leaders
Rich Simonelli is back at CoStar after a 5-year hiatus, leading investor relations, while Cyndi Eakin was promoted to chief accounting officer.
Editor's note: As an industry with millions of agents and over 100,000 brokerage companies, new leaders rise to the top every day. Here we highlight executives and other notable leaders who've recently taken on, or stepped away from, roles that influence the residential real estate landscape.
Commercial and residential real estate giant CoStar Group has welcomed back a former exec and elevated an existing leader to its C-suite.
Rich Simonelli has returned to CoStar, where he previously held the role of VP of investor relations for nearly nine years before leaving in 2019 to pursue consulting work. Most recently, he spent two years at Compass in a similar SVP role. Now back at CoStar, Simonelli will again lead investor relations for the company.
In his new capacity, he will drive shareholder communication strategies, leveraging his decades of experience in investor and public relations experience across the real estate and financial sectors.
CoStar has been in an enviable position relative to its industry peers over the past several years, reporting consistent revenue gains to its shareholders — something that has eluded many other public residential real estate companies as home sales have slowed.
In addition to Simonelli's return, CoStar also announced the appointment of Cyndi Eakin as chief accounting officer. Eakin has been with the company since 2016 and most recently held the role that Simonelli will now fill. She previously served as controller.
Eakin has been deeply involved in CoStar's growth strategies, supporting acquisition integrations and capital-raising activities, according to a news release.
Both execs will report to CoStar's new CFO, Chris Lown, who joined on July 1 following the retirement of former CFO Scott Wheeler.
"I'm delighted to welcome Rich back to CoStar Group and announce Cyndi's promotion," said Andy Florance, CoStar's founder and CEO. "As we enter another era of growth for the company, I believe Rich's experience with CoStar Group's ambitious plans and track record of success, combined with his residential real estate industry experience, will be more relevant than ever to CoStar Group. … And Cyndi's prior experience as our Controller and most recent experience in Investor Relations make her uniquely suited to oversee our accounting function."