Greenhouse OS Appoints Accomplished PropTech Leader Nikki Cole as Commercial Director

We’re thrilled to announce a huge new addition to the Greenhouse OS family, Nikki Cole is joining us as our new Commercial Director!

Nikki joins Greenhouse OS following an incredible 17-year journey across the Houseful (formerly ZPG) ecosystem. During her time as Director of Sales at Zoopla and Commercial Director at Alto, Nikki was instrumental in driving commercial expansion, building deep agency partnerships and championing innovative tech across the UK property sector.

In her new role, Nikki will be leading our commercial strategy, driving market expansion and working closely with agency leaders as we accelerate the adoption of our operating platform.

Nikki will officially be joining the team on the ground at EA Masters on 3rd November, but if you can’t wait until then to find out more, we caught up with her to chat about why she joined Greenhouse OS, what she sees coming next for proptech and what she’s most excited to get stuck into…

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Q: Tell us about your experience at Zoopla & Alto.

Nikki: I joined Zoopla as part of its very first acquisition, when we were a team of just 16 people. It was an incredibly exciting time to be part of the business and over the following 17 years I had the opportunity to help shape its growth through some major milestones, including the IPO, the Silver Lake acquisition.

My career evolved alongside the business, from the property marketplace into the software side, including Alto. That gave me a really broad perspective on the estate agency industry – how agents operate, the challenges they face and how technology can genuinely help them grow.

I’ve been fortunate to work with some fantastic people and businesses throughout that journey and it’s given me a real passion for helping estate agents get more value from technology.

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Q: You spent 17 years shaping the landscape at Zoopla and Alto. What was it about Greenhouse OS that made you say, “I need to be part of this next chapter”

Nikki: For me, it was the combination of the technology, the opportunity and the people.

Greenhouse OS has built something really exciting on Salesforce, a platform that’s been trusted by businesses globally and I’ve used personally for many many years. That gives us an incredibly strong foundation, but what really excites me is the flexibility to build around the needs of estate agents, rather than asking agents to change the way they work to fit their CRM.

I also think we’re at a real turning point in the industry. For years, CRMs were essentially digital filing cabinets. More recently, they’ve become workflow engines that help agents manage transactions. But the next evolution is much more exciting – making the CRM a genuine growth engine that helps agents identify opportunities, win more instructions and generate more revenue.

Greenhouse OS has the foundations, the ambition and the entrepreneurial mindset to make that happen. It’s also got a great team culture & that’s something I really wanted to be part of.

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Q: Having worked closely with UK estate agents for nearly two decades, what is the single biggest operational friction they’re facing today and how does Greenhouse OS eliminate it?

Nikki: I think one of the biggest challenges is that estate agents are sitting on huge amounts of valuable data, but they’re not always able to turn that information into meaningful action.

Think about all the historic valuations, applicants, previous vendors, landlords and past transactions sitting in an agency’s CRM. There’s an enormous amount of potential business in that data, but too often it sits there waiting for someone to find it.

The industry has also embraced AI incredibly quickly. But the answer isn’t simply using AI to generate hundreds of generic prospecting emails. Agents need intelligent tools that understand their business, their brand and their customers and help them identify who they should be speaking to, when and why.

That’s where I see Greenhouse OS making a real difference. It’s about connecting the data, the workflows and the intelligence so agents can spend less time searching for opportunities and more time having valuable conversations with customers.

Ultimately, technology should help agents be better agents, not try to replace the human relationships that make them successful.

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Q: If we look ahead 12 to 18 months, what shift in property tech or agency operations gets you most excited about what we’re building here?

Nikki: Without question, it’s the opportunity to turn data into action, and crucially, how accessible that has now become. 

For years, the industry has invested heavily in generating new leads, while often overlooking the opportunities already sitting within its own databases. I think we’re going to see a real shift towards making much better use of that existing information.

What excites me most right now is how we’re breaking down those walls through the headless architecture. You can now talk directly to your CRM through your choice of AI.

You don’t need to be a software engineer to build a custom lettings dashboard, query your team’s pipeline, or pull a complete two-minute vendor brief before an appraisal. You just ask for it in plain English, and the system delivers it on demand.

AI and tools such as Digital Negotiator are beginning to make it possible to identify the signals and triggers that tell an agent when a customer might be ready to move, sell, let or need another service.

What’s exciting is that the technology doesn’t have to do the selling. It can surface the opportunity, provide the context and prompt the right action – then the agent can pick up the phone and have a genuinely relevant, personalised conversation.

I also think this is just the beginning. The CRM of the future won’t simply manage a property transaction from instruction to completion. It will play a much bigger role across the entire property lifecycle, from prospecting and winning instructions through to mortgages, utilities, referrals and future property moves.

That’s a really exciting opportunity for Greenhouse OS and for the agencies we work with.

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Q: What are you most looking forward to at Greenhouse OS?

Nikki: The people, the pace and the opportunity to build something genuinely different.

Having spent so many years in a large organisation, I’m really looking forward to being part of an entrepreneurial leadership team where we can make decisions quickly, work closely with our customers and turn great ideas into real solutions.

We’ve got a fantastic foundation with Salesforce, a really ambitious team and a huge opportunity to rethink what an estate agency CRM can deliver.

For me, it’s about helping create a business and a product that agents genuinely love using – and, more importantly, one that makes a measurable difference to their growth and profitability.

The next generation of estate agency CRM isn’t just about managing transactions more efficiently. It’s about helping agents identify, create and convert more opportunities across the entire property lifecycle. 

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A warm welcome from the leadership team:

“We are delighted to welcome Nikki to the Greenhouse OS leadership team. Her depth of expertise across sales, commercial strategy and proptech software, honed during her time leading teams, makes her uniquely suited to guide our commercial expansion. Beyond her impressive track record, Nikki brings an incredible level of warmth, positive energy and drive that has already resonated right across our team. She has fit seamlessly into the culture here and her appointment reflects our commitment to bringing top-tier talent into the business as we scale.”

Alex Rhodes, Managing Director at Greenhouse OS

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Heading to EA Masters on 3rd November?

Keep an eye out for Nikki and the Greenhouse OS team on the exhibition floor!