Insurance executive Jawed Barna will succeed Sven Odia as the CEO of international luxury real estate brokerage Engel & Völkers, the company announced Thursday.
Odia, who led the Hamburg-based company for nine years, has stepped down from the management board and will assume the newly created role of president.
Barna most recently served as deputy CEO at Zurich Insurance Group Germany, where he has worked since 2005.
“We are excited to welcome Jawed Barna as a strong leader with a proven track record. His successful experience in building digital platforms and managing a complex sales organization makes him a perfect fit for E&V,” Christian Völkers, founder and chairman of the advisory board, said in a statement. “Together with our majority owner Permira, we are convinced that Jawed Barna has what it takes to lead E&V into the next phase of growth, with the goal of becoming the best platform for high-quality real estate worldwide.”
In his most recent role at Zurich Insurance Group Germany, Barna was responsible for driving sales and partnerships, and successfully led large business units serving private and SME clients, as well as managing thousands of external brokers and insurance agents, Permira, said.
In a statement, Odia, who has worked at E&V for 26 years, said he would “actively support” Barna.
“With its strong growth and digitization strategy, E&V is perfectly positioned to continue its success story,” he said. “We have significantly increased revenue and earnings in recent years and look back on a stellar performance in 2023 so far, even in a difficult market environment. Throughout my career, my top priority has always been empowering people to write their own success story under the E&V brand. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the entire team worldwide for the terrific collaboration over the past two decades.”
Odia led E&V through Permira’s acquisition in late 2021, in which the global private equity firm bought a controlling stake for an undisclosed amount.
Operations for E&V North America are led by Anthony Hitt, who’s been at the helm since 2014.
The global luxury real estate brand recently partnered with Dilbeck Real Estate, which achieved $1.04 billion in sales volume last year, according to the RealTrends 500 rankings. Dilbeck was #373 in the nation by sales volume last year, and its agents averaged $2.99 million in volume. Dilbeck ranked as the 178th largest independent brokerage in America in 2022 and nine of its agents cleared $16 million in sales volume last year, according to our rankings.
Under the arrangement, Dilbeck will retain partial ownership and oversee the day-to-day operations of Los Angeles and Ventura county locations.
Engel & Völkers Gestalt Group, based out of Park City, Utah, ranked as E&V’s top affiliate in the most recent RealTrends rankings. The affiliate posted $3.77 billion in sales volume last year, with the average agent generating $4.88 million.