(Yicai Global) June 17 -- Gu Guodong, one of several vice presidents to leave Chinese search giant Baidu in the past few months, has joined home rentals platform Danke Apartment as chief operating officer.

Gu will lead Danke's offline business, a Tencent Finance-backed column named Forefront reported today. He worked with Danke's chief executive Gao Jing at Nuomi, an online-to-offline life service platform, until Baidu acquired the company in 2014 and Gu moved up the rankings before reaching VP status last year.

Baidu has been rejigging its top management since Senior VP Xiang Hailong quit on May 17, triggering a string of high-level resignations. Chief Technology Officer of Search Zheng Zibin became the fourth VP to exit in just three months earlier in June, following Gu and Zhao Cheng. Executive Director Sun Wenyu has also recently left the firm.

Danke welcomes Gu and looks forward to the company reaching a new level of management strength, Gao said, adding that his firm is seeking to set new operational standards for the housing rental sector.

Founded in 2015, Danke builds high-end apartments for urban white-collar workers. I manages about 500,000 properties in 10 major Chinese cities, including Beijing and southern tech hub Shenzhen.

Editor: James Boynton