Glenn Sanford Out As eXp CEO

EXp Realty has a new CEO.

The firm elevated Leo Pareja from chief strategy officer to chief executive, the company announced. Founder Glenn Sanford, who returned to the top job in January 2023, is sticking around as chair and CEO of parent company eXp World Holdings.

Pareja has been with eXp since 2022. As chief strategy officer, he oversaw the launch of its international listing network eXp Exclusives and its lead generation tool, Revenos.

The change in leadership at the brokerage comes after a year of a difficult housing market and a series of sexual misconduct lawsuits that took aim in part at Sanford’s role atop the firm.

The first was filed in early 2023 by four women who accused fellow eXp agents Michael Bjorkman and David Golden of luring them to industry events, where they allege they were drugged and sexually assaulted. The lawsuit was later expanded to include Sanford, who they claim failed to take action against the two male agents because they were top recruiters.

A second lawsuit was filed in December by a woman who accused Bjorkman and Golden of drugging and sexually assaulting her. In January, the firm was named in a Nevada lawsuit filed in January by a former Reno agent accusing her team lead at eXp of sexual harassment and retaliation.

Golden has since been suspended and Bjorkman is no longer with the brokerage. The firm has denied the allegations in responses to at least one of the lawsuits.

New York comptroller Thomas DiNapoli in January demanded an independent investigation by the brokerage into the sexual harassment and assault allegations against it. The state’s interest in eXp is tied to a pension fund: New York State Common Retirement Fund’s most recent SEC filing as of January showed it held 27,000 shares of eXp’s parent company.

The company, which emphasizes its fast-growing headcount and touted its revenue and equity sharing programs, reported $9 million net loss in 2023, down from over $15 million net income in 2022. Revenue declined 7 percent from the previous year to $4.3 billion.

Before joining eXp, Pareja was chief strategy officer at real estate platform Remine and previously co-founded Washington Capital Partners, a real estate financing company.

The executive got his start in real estate at Keller Williams, and claims to have been on the brokerage’s top team worldwide in 2010 on his LinkedIn. The following year he was named in Realtor magazine’s “30 under 30” list.