Industry veteran becomes chair of franchise giant as founder retires

The founder of franchise giant Belvoir, Mike Goddard, has now stepped down as chair of the company, two years after quitting as its chief executive officer.

Goddard founded Belvoir with his wife Stephanie in 1995 and at yesterday’s Annual General Meeting of the firm - the last with Goddard as chair - the current chief executive Dorian Gonsalves spoke of the pleasure he had of working with the founder since 2005.

“Through his entrepreneurial spirit and his passion for franchising, Belvoir has become the largest property franchise group in the UK.  I would like to express my personal and the board's sincere gratitude for all that Mike has done and achieved as founder, chief executive and chairman over the past 24 years” Gonsalves said. 

Taking over as chairman from today is industry veteran Michael Stoop, who has 40 years experience in the industry, much of it involved with franchise operations.

During that time he has been managing director of Winkworth, was the head of Xperience (the agency franchising arm of Legal & General), was group managing director at Martin & Co - now named The Property Franchise Group - and is still involved on the board of at least one PropTech company.

Stoop is, in addition, vice-chairman of The Property Ombudsman.

"We welcome as chairman, Michael Stoop, who has over 40 years' experience of the property franchise sector and has already made a significant contribution since joining the [Belvoir] board in March 2018” says a statement from Dorian Gonsalves.

The AGM heard that Belvoir’s first quarter trading for 2019 was exceeding expectations in all three of its activity areas - sales, lettings and financial services.