Two key executives have left their roles at the embattled real-estate startup Better.com. Both the chief operating officer, Sarah Pierce, and the head of capital markets, Emanuel Santa-Donato, have resigned from the company, according to a person with direct knowledge of both departures.
Internal Slack accounts for both Pierce and Santa-Donato were shown as deactivated as of Thursday morning.
Pierce and Santa-Donato declined to comment. Better hasn't yet responded to an Insider request for comment. As of Thursday, Santa-Donato's LinkedIn page said "Formerly @Better.com" at the top.
Since the initial publication of this story, Insider received a screenshot of an internal memo announcing Pierce's departure. The email noted that Armando La Rocca will lead the operations team in the interim, while Megan Bellingham will lead sales, mortgage operations and Better real estate.
The news comes just two weeks after the controversial CEO and founder Vishal Garg was reinstated at the helm of the SoftBank-backed mortgage firm. Garg made headlines around the world for firing 900 employees on Zoom at the beginning of December, before insulting departed employees in an all-hands meeting right after the layoffs and on Blind, an anonymous message board. He took a leave of absence shortly afterward.
In December, the heads of the company's marketing, public relations, and communications all resigned from their positions.
TechCrunch reported last week that since Garg's return, he has become increasingly paranoid about leaks to the media, going as far as taking phones away from employees who meet with him personally.
Garg is swamped in legal cases that allege he has mishandled funds in previous businesses and used stolen technology and capital to start Better.
The company is working to finalize a blank-check deal that would bring it public. When SoftBank first invested in the company in 2020, it promised Garg their shares' voting rights if his legal cases are settled, according to a report from Axios.
