Cazoo has appointed online retail specialist Jonathan Howell as its chief technology officer, ahead of its launch at the end of the year.

Howell will be responsible for the technology vision and execution, scaling and growing a high-performance development team at the online used car retail business, which set to be launched by Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman, as well as overseeing website development and customer-facing technologies.

The used car buying platform has pooled its recent talent from other recognised brands, as it welcomed three new recruits from AutoTrader, Tesla and Manheim.

It also recruited the former chief financial officer of Paddy Power Betfair, Alex Gersh, as its first chief financial officer.

Having raised over £30 million in funding, Cazoo aims to make buying a used car no different than buying any other product online today by letting consumers select from thousands of cars, have them delivered to their door and offering a risk-free returns policy.

Howell joins Cazoo from MADE.com where he has spent the last five years as chief technology officer, growing the technology and product management teams from 15 to 100, supporting revenue growth of more than six times as well as expansion of the business in Europe across 11 countries.

Previously, he was chief technology officer at Huddle.com and held various positions at Lastminute.com and IBM.

Howell said: “I am very excited to join Cazoo. It’s rare to get a chance to build something from the ground up and not inherit legacy tech. We will ensure that our website, AI and automation are world-class which will ultimately help deliver the best possible consumer experience in the used car market.”

Alex Chesterman, the founder and chief executive of Cazoo, said: “We are delighted to welcome Jonathan to the Cazoo team. His retail experience and customer centric approach to technology will help us deliver a simple and seamless digital used car buying experience for UK consumers when we launch later this year.”