The Real Real CEO John Koryl Out
The Real Real Went Public in 2019. Since then, the company has had 4 CEOs, the founder Julie Wainright, Rati Sahi Levesque and Robert Julian as co-CEOs as they worked to find a successor, John Koryl, and now Rati Sahi Levesque solo.
To recap:
* Turnover on the C-Suite means a troubled company on a number of levels. Only time will tell.
* The company is growing topline and GMV. Profitability is moving at least in the right direction.
What happens to John Koryl?
- It's possible there is some kind of malfeasance. Remember when the last ebay CEO resigned from eBay over "disagreements"? Turns out he left to avoid his own disgrace instead. Whoops.
- It's also possible there was just a large disagreement with the Board of Directors - he was terminated without cause and received 1 year salary as separation or about $600k. This could indicate the Board just wanted him to go away quickly.
What's next for the new CEO? Really, there are one of two directions this could take:
* one is the start of some kind of sales process. try and improve the business as much as possible while you find a buyer.
* another is some kind of long-term play. given the continued importance of profitability, it's possible more layoffs could be coming to settle in for a longer transformation.
All this to say, CEO turmoil is no bueno for the morale of any company, so the new CEO has her work cut out for her. Good news is, Levesque has been with the company so long she definitely knows where all the bodies are buried.
If it turns out that Levesque was doing all the hard work anyway under Koryl, you could see the path to profitability accelerate if it leads to greater focus.
Levesque has been there from the beginning so there could be some element of “Founder Mode”.
Does that mode help on a broken business model?
Asking for a friend.
Or... employee departues and layoffs could lead to a talent drain which could just make things more difficult.
All in the execution at this point.
