Home Blogs From buying to building: How our General Counsel navigated 10 years of transformation at OLX
  • Built for Change
  • People of OLX

5 min. read

Transformation at OLX

From buying to building: How our General Counsel navigated 10 years of transformation at OLX

An interview with Craig Allwright about navigating war, transformation, and helping build OLX from a fragmented group into one company.

Craig Allwright
Craig Allwright
General Counsel

Craig, you joined OLX in 2014. But you were involved even before that. Can you explain?

I started out as an M&A corporate lawyer in a law firm, Allen & Overy, before joining Naspers (now Prosus) as an M&A lawyer. During my time with Naspers I was involved in acquiring companies like Allegro.pl, Ricardo.ch, Tablica.pl – which is now OLX.pl – eMag, OLX Inc itself. All of them.

When Martin Scheepbouwer joined as the first CEO in about 2014, I helped him pull all the classifieds companies scattered around Naspers together into one business unit called Naspers Classifieds. Then, in 2015, we rebranded everything as OLX.

So I went from buying the pieces to helping build them into something unified.

1200×1200

What was OLX like back then compared to now?

Completely different.

Initially, OLX (originally it was a business unit called Naspers Classifieds) was a collection of very different platforms, cultures, brands, geographies, and technologies. It was incredibly difficult to bring all these pieces together. Many companies still had their original founders running things, using their own tech stacks and ways of working.

Honestly, OLX was the product of a “McKinsey” approach to building a company. All PowerPoint presentations and MBA case studies. The operations were largely left to local founders and management. And it was hugely loss-making.

The OLX of today? United, growing and profitable. But more importantly, it’s run as an operational company with a common vision, a common culture, and a much crisper, clearer set of goals and metrics.

The transformation from a bunch of investments in many companies to a fully independent operational OLX Group has been incredible to witness. The power of One OLX, one vision, one team – that’s what continues to inspire me and make me prouder to be part of this company than ever before.

 

Ten years is a long time, especially through so much change. What’s kept you here?

I always believe that certain jobs and companies come around only once or twice in your lifetime or career. OLX is one of those.

It’s a chance for me – together with my colleagues – to build something together for the future.

I’m the sort of person that really enjoys not having the same day from one day to the next. I have always felt that I have unfinished business at OLX. I enjoy the mission we are on and I respect the people with whom I work. In any event, I actually enjoy the process of change and my personality is simply that I never give up.  

You stayed through some incredibly difficult moments – war, COVID, business closures. Why not leave during those times?

Actually, those are exactly the times I feel energised (as stressful as they may be). It is the time to stand up, dust yourself off and  lead by doing things to solve the issues.

These are experiences that also make for a hugely interesting working life. While you’re in it, it’s stressful and rather daunting. But in hindsight you ALWAYS realize that the experiences build you, and tough experiences build you even more.

Another benefit of gaining wisdom through adversity is that you realize you become good at distinguishing between what is really urgent and critical and what is not.

Let’s talk about the war breaking out in Ukraine. That must have been the hardest moment?

It was horrendous and a difficult time, and still is for many of our Ukrainian colleagues who I admire very much.

When the war started, it was shocking because our Ukrainian colleagues were in mortal danger and under attack. We lost contact with many of our colleagues for days on end as they fled Kiev and other parts of the Ukraine, and it put our whole existence of our OLX Ukraine business at risk. We also lost our biggest business, Avito.ru, in Russia, as a consequence of the war. From one day to the next there was an immense dissatisfaction within our workforce and dealing with the animosity between our employees in Russia, Ukraine and Poland, and towards management, was one of the most difficult times in my working career. 

Craig_5

But you said in hindsight, tough experiences build you. What came out of that crisis?

The biggest opportunity that emerged was refocusing on what was truly worth fighting for: the rest of our OLX business.

Specifically, it caused us to refocus on the core of our business – geographically located in Europe and South Africa, and heavily driven by our Cars and Real Estate vertical and horizontal categories.

What looked like a huge, insurmountable problem turned out to be healthy for the business because it forced us to stop non-core businesses, close unviable geographies and offices, and radically change our self-assessment, structures, and management.

Since then we’ve gained a new CEO, Christian Gisy, a superb operator with deep experience in the classifieds sector, particularly in Autos. His no-nonsense approach and vision is focused even more on seeing the opportunities, chasing them relentlessly, emphasizing what we do well and challenging and pushing where we can improve.

If you trace it back, I believe the war indirectly brought about the much-needed change to our management and structures, and the advent of our  new CEO, Christian.

 

What would you tell someone who’s feeling anxious about our next phase of growth?

Anxiety is natural. Everyone has it in varying degrees during their career.

But remember – “a problem shared is a problem halved.” We are all in this together.

OLX is a collection of very smart, very driven people, and we are always stronger together. So, first point, you are not alone.

Secondly, we see growth as a product of what we do well, and how we make experiences on our sites, apps, products even better, more exciting for the customer. We don’t do this just to chase revenues and margins. We genuinely believe we can make a difference to people’s lives in some of the biggest purchases and decisions of their lives. Our success follows only after that.

Looking back on 10 years, what’s your biggest learning?

That certain opportunities are rare. This one at OLX is one of them.

The future and one’s career are always unpredictable but you cannot just crawl up, do nothing and hope it all will sort itself out. No, you have to tackle each day head-on to the best of your ability. Life after all is about gaining wisdom through experiences, good or bad.  War, crisis, transformation – these looked like obstacles to me at the time. But they turned out to be the experiences that made me, and OLX, much much stronger.

So, the company we are today is better placed than ever before. It is just as well, because the next challenge is already upon us – perhaps our biggest challenge and opportunity to date (perhaps for all humankind actually) – the advent of Agentic AI. Bring it on – I’m excited and I am certainly not done yet!

 

Craig’s story is part of our “Built for Change” series, celebrating colleagues who’ve chosen growth over comfort. If you’re someone who thrives on transformation rather than stability, explore our open positions. Your first chapter at OLX could start here.

Think you’re built for change? Join us.

Explore open roles at OLX

Related articles