Snap poaches Amazon's head of ad sales Jeremi Gorman for chief business role
Snap has poached Amazon's global head of ad sales Jeremi Gorman to take on the role of chief business officer. Her appointment coincides with the hire of ex-Huffington post chief executive Jared Grusd who will fill the chief strategy officer position left vacant by Imran Khan.
The two new hires are replacing Imran Khan, who said in September that he was leaving to pursue other projects
The appointments were announced to staff by Snapchat founder and chief executive Evan Spiegel, who told employees that Gorman would oversee global online sales, customer operations and business marketing.
Spiegel said: "Helping our partners build their businesses is a core element of Snap's product value and I'm deeply proud of the great work you have all done to make sure our advertisers' return on investment is unrivaled among our peers," adding: "[Gorman] joins us with proven expertise and talent that will make our platform even better."
Gorman's departure from Amazon comes months after the e-commerce giant revealed that its ad business had grown by 132% in the first quarter of 2018 – rising from $945m to $2.2bn.
Gorman has previously held roles at Yahoo (prior to the AOL acquisition and Oath rebrand) and Variety, she has been with Amazon for close to seven years.
As chief strategy officer, Grusd will oversee content, global strategy, partnerships and corporate development for Snapchat.
Prior to HuffPost, Grusd held roles at Spotify - where he was general counsel and global head of corporate development - and AOL.
The two are replacing Khan, who said in September that he was leaving to pursue other projects.
The appointments come just one day ahead of the Snapchat owner's Q3 earnings update.
It's no secret Snap has struggled to assure investors of its long-term profitability. In February, the platform experienced a boost on the stock market thanks to its investments in the adtech space, with Khan, saying the introduction of an auction model had helped double the number of advertisers spending on the platform.
During its Q2 earnings it beat expectations with earnings of $262.3m, but its daily active user count shrunk by 1.5% to 188 million in the three months to July.
In a 15-page memo leaked to Cheddar last week, which Snap has refused to comment on, Spiegel said he wanted the company to acheieve full-year profitability in 2019 and revealed he had refocused it around a new set of strategic goals.
The latest Snap appointments follow on from the departure of its comms chief Mary Ritti and the exit of global head of sales Jeff Lucas and product boss Tom Conrad.