Snap hires execs from Amazon, Huffington Post after Imran Khan quits

Snap
Inc. Founder Evan Spiegel at the Berggruen Prize Gala at the New
York Public Library on December 14, 2017 in New York
City.
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for
Berggruen Institute

• Snapchat
  parent company Snap has announced two new executive hires
  following the departure of its chief strategy officer.
• Jeremi Gorman joins from Amazon, and Jared Grusd
  previously worked at The Huffington Post.
• The appointment comes ahead
  of Snap’s Q3 earnings.

Snap,
the parent company of messaging app Snapchat, has brought on two
new executives from Amazon
and The Huffington Post following the departure of its chief
strategy officer.

The company hired Amazon’s head of global advertising sales
Jeremi Gorman to be its chief business officer, responsible for
the company’s “global business solutions, global online sales,
customer operations, and business marketing,” CEO Evan Spiegel
said in an email to employees on Wednesday shared with Business
Insider by a spokesperson. (You can read the full email below.)

And former The Huffington Post CEO Jared Grusd is joining as
chief strategy officer, looking after “content, global strategy,
partnerships, and corporate development.”

The hires come after the
September news of the departure of chief strategy officer Imran
Khan, who had been with the company since 2015 and served as
Spiegel’s right-hand man. 

Snap stock briefly spiked around 2% on the news, but it has since
largely leveled out. The company has struggled since going public
in 2017, as Facebook aggressively moves in on its turf. Snap will
announce its quarterly earnings on Thursday.

A Snap spokesperson also flagged a number of other recent hires
at the company, including: A new director of EU policy, Jean
Gonié, who previously worked at Amazon; new director of platform
partnerships Alston Cheek, formerly at Apple; Steen Strand, a
director of product design for Snap Lab, previously at ICON
Aircraft, and new head of music partnerships, Ted Suh, formerly
at Bytedance.

Here’s the full email Evan Spiegel sent Snap employees about the
hires:

I’m happy to announce two significant additions to our
leadership team today that will help us deliver on the long-term
promise and potential of Snap.

Jeremi Gorman will be our Chief Business Officer, managing
Global Business Solutions, Global Online Sales, Customer
Operations, and Business Marketing.

Jeremi joins us from Amazon, where she is the Head of
Global Advertising Sales. In six years of increasing leadership
responsibilities at Amazon, she oversaw business intelligence and
analytics and the international expansion of Amazon’s advertising
business.

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. Jeremi joins us with
proven expertise and talent that will make our platform even
better for our partners and I am excited to have her on our
team.

Jared Grusd will be joining Snap as our new Chief Strategy
Officer, overseeing Content, Global Strategy, Partnerships, and
Corporate Development. Jared, who is an attorney by training, has
held leadership positions at Spotify, Google and Oath, and for
the past three years, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of
The Huffington Post.

In his new role, Jared will work to expand Snap’s footprint
and develop key relationships around the globe to scale user
growth. We have an immense amount of running room to grow
globally through the billions of people who do not yet use Snap.
Getting them to experience the speed, ease and fun of Snap – that
Snap is the fastest way to communicate — will be a key in the
coming months and years.  

I know our goals for the coming years are ambitious. But I
have great confidence in our ambition because we have led our
industry time and again in developing products people love.
That’s all thanks to you, our incredibly smart, creative and kind
team.  

I’m proud to have Jeremi and Jared join our team, where
they will play an important part in shaping the next chapter for
Snap. Thank you again for all of your hard work, and thank you in
advance for welcoming Jeremi and Jared into our Snap
family.

Evan

Get the latest Snap stock price here.