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- Snap's New Guard: Meet the new power players who help CEO Evan Spiegel run Snap Inc.
Snap's New Guard: Meet the new power players who help CEO Evan Spiegel run Snap Inc.
As Snap Inc.'s cofounder and CEO, Evan Spiegel wields the most influence and calls the shots on all product decisions.
Bobby Murphy cofounded Snapchat with Evan Spiegel and has been the CTO since 2012.
Bobby Murphy is Snapchat's cofounder and has served as its Chief Technology Officer since 2012, but has largely steered clear of the spotlight — until very recently.
Murphy, who leads engineering and research at the company, took the stage immediately after Spiegel at the company's inaugural Partner Summit, announcing all the major updates relating to Snap's camera and AR efforts, including its new Landmarker Lenses and AR Bar.
He has known Spiegel since they were in the same fraternity at Stanford, and is credited with building the core technical tenets of Snapchat's app. He is Snap's second-largest shareholder with 46.4% total voting power according to the company's 2018 Annual Report.
The 30-year-old is also a member of Snap's board of directors.
Jeremi Gorman helped build Amazon's burgeoning ad business, and is now Snap's Chief Business Officer.
With a sales and marketing career spanning 20 years, the former Amazon exec was a star hire for the company in November 2018 after a tumultuous year of executive churn.
As Snap's Chief Business Officer, Gorman is charged with building out the company's business strategy, including revenue, and bolstering the performance of its ad business.
Both Wall Street and Madison Avenue are bullish on Gorman, with BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield saying that brands and advertisers viewed her hire "as a meaningful step-up in management quality."
At Amazon, she was the head of global advertising sales, where she oversaw business intelligence and analytics, as well as the international expansion of Amazon's advertising business.
Her annual base salary as of December 31, 2018 was $500,000, according to Snap's 2018 Annual Report.
Jared Grusd is Snap's new Chief Strategy Officer, and is trying to extend Snapchat's reach to new users.
Snap hired former HuffPost CEO Jared Grusd, along with Gorman, to take over the responsibilities of Imran Khan, its former chief strategy officer who guided the company to an IPO.
Grusd is an attorney by training, but his career has included leadership positions at Spotify, Google, and Oath (formerly AOL). His mandate is to expand Snap's global footprint and scale its reach globally to users beyond its core demographic of 18- to 34-year-olds.
He oversees content, global strategy, partnerships, and corporate development.
Lara Sweet is currently serving as Snap's interim financial chief, and in charge of all of Snap's books.
Since joining the company in 2016, Sweet has steadily risen up the ranks at the company, and currently serves as as its interim Chief Financial Officer.
Her appointment came after Tim Stone, Snap's last CFO, announced his departure from the company in January this year. She also led the company's fourth quarter 2018 earnings.
Sweet's job is not an easy one given how volatile the company's stock price has been recently. That volatility has been prompted by concerns around stalled growth and competition from Facebook's Instagram.
Prior to Snap, Sweet spent six years in various executive finance roles at AOL.
Julie Henderson is a seasoned communications executive, and will serve as the new gatekeeper between Snap and the media.
As Snap's chief communications officer, Henderson leads the company's communications strategy globally, and reports directly to Spiegel.
She replaces Snap's former VP of Communications Mary Ritti, and was formerly the EVP and chief communications officer at 21st Century Fox.
While Henderson officially started fairly recently — after the completion of the sale of certain 21st Century Fox assets to the Walt Disney Company — her stamp is already visible.
There is a marked difference in Snap's approach, with its splashy SXSW presence as well as its first Partner Summit.
Jerry Hunter is spearheading Snap's major Android rebuild, and fixing its user experience problems on the operating system.
One of the biggest hindrances to the growth of Snapchat's flagship app has been its sluggish performance and user experience on Android devices.
As SVP of Engineering, Hunter has been leading the rewriting effort since the beginning of 2018, to improve its Android app and bring it up to par with the iOS app. The new app is expected to roll out by the end of the year, and is expected to be faster and more bug-free than the old version.
Hunter was poached from Amazon in 2016, where he was responsible for its data centers around the world. He initially joined Snap as its VP of Core Engineering, and got a larger mandate after the departure of Tim Sehn, Snap's former SVP of Engineering.
Michael Lynton is the former CEO of Sony, and has been the chairman of Snap's board of directors since 2016.
Lynton is the former CEO of Sony Entertainment, and has been a trusted advisor to Evan Spiegel for a long time.
While Lynton has been on Snap's board of directors since April 2013, he has been serving as the independent Chairman of the Board since 2016.
Lynton was recently also appointed as the non-executive chairman of the board of Warner Music Group.
He began his career at Disney in 1987, and eventually served as the president of Hollywood Pictures from 1992 to 1996. He has also served as CEO of AOL Europe, president of AOL International, and president of Time Warner International.
Mike O'Sullivan has been Snap's General Counsel for almost two years now.
Sullivan has been Snap's General Counsel since 2017, when former General Counsel Chris Handman stepped down.
Earlier in his career, O'Sullivan represented Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin during its IPO, as well as Bank of America during the financial crisis.
He joined Snap from Munger, Tolles, and Olson LLP, the Los Angeles law firm owned by Evan Spiegel's father, and now leads Snap's internal team of lawyers on a variety of matters, from IP litigation to privacy.
Claire Valoti is leading the charge on Snapchat's growing international business, including the UK, France, Germany, Australia, and the Middle East.
Valoti is Snap's most senior executive outside the US, overseeing all of its international markets, including the UK, France, Germany, Australia, and the Middle East, among others.
She was initially poached from Facebook to head up Snap's growing European operation as GM of UK Sales, and was promoted to her current role in February 2018.
Valoti pitches Snapchat's ad products to advertisers globally, and reports directly to Gorman. International growth makes up an increasing portion of Snap's revenue.
Sean Mills leads all original content efforts, including shows, on the Discover platform.
Mills has been at Snapchat for nearly four years, and as Senior Director of Content, is leading Snap's push into becoming a destination for original shows on Discover.
He heads up Originals, Snap's roster of short-form, scripted-video series, which was launched in October, and recently announced 10 new original shows starting May at the Partner Summit.
His team is also responsible for working closely with Snap's growing roster of show partners, from NBC and Discovery, to other smaller studios.
Prior to joining Snapchat, Mills was president of video startup NowThis, and president of The Onion. He used to report to Nick Bell, Snap's former VP of Content, but likely has an expanded mandate now that Bell has departed.
Steve Hwang is a former lawyer who now helps with strategy and corporate development.
Hwang's name first came in the public eye with the Sony email hacks in 2015, which surfaced several secret acquisitions that he orchestrated for the company.
He has been a longtime employee of Snap, and used to oversee legal operations. But now he is the VP of Strategy and Corporate Development.
Insiders consider him to be a part of Spiegel's inner circle, with one former employee telling Business Insider that "he gets into Evan's head."
Dominic Perrella plays a key role in helping Snap navigate key legal and privacy issues.
Perella not only serves as the Deputy General Counsel, but also plays a key role in guiding the company through compliance issues as its Chief Compliance Officer, in a world where privacy is increasingly important.
He serves as the global head of litigation, and oversees global communication and competition regulatory matters. He has architected Snap's global compliance program that emphasizes clear policies, intensive training, automated due diligence, and risk-based audits.
He also interfaces directly with regulators in the United States and Europe. He was previously a partner at Hogan Lovells in Washington, DC, and a member of the firm's Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation team.
Jacob Andreou is a longtime product designer at Snap, and was promoted to VP of Product in 2018.
Andreou is another close associate of Evan Spiegel's, according to insiders, and has been a longtime product designer at Snap.
He was was promoted to VP of Product in April 2018, after former VP of Product Tom Conrad left the company, and oversees the team behind Snap's innovative features.
Spiegel presumably still controls a lot of the ultimate product decisions, but Andreou is more embedded in the day-to-day operations of the product team.
Jacob 'Ba' Blackstock is the creator and leader of Bitmoji, which is a huge driver for Snapchat.
Snap acquired Bitmoji parent company Bitstrips in early 2016, hoping to cash in on its ability to turn people into emoji cartoons of themselves. Now, it is taking Bitmoji everywhere.
Blackstock is the chief executive of Bitmoji, and is leading its expansion as it grows beyond Snapchat. He reports directly to Spiegel.
Not only are Bitmoji the foundation of "Bitmoji Party," Snap's first original game, but they can now live outside of Snap, too, in places like Tinder and Fitbit.
Bitmoji also continues to remain popular on the App Store as an independent app, and was among the top 10 iOS apps downloaded last year.
Eitan Pilipski works closely with Bobby Murphy, and is leading Snap's push into AR.
Snapchat has been pushing its way into augmented reality for years with an array of playful features, building toward a post-smartphone world where experiential computing transcends mobile screens.
Pilipski, VP of Engineering for Snap's camera platform, is one of the key figures actually building a cohesive ecosystem for Snap's AR vision to become a reality. A Qualcomm vet, Pilipski works closely with Bobby Murphy on features such as Lens Studio.
"There is going to be a time when computing will overlay the physical world, and different companies are taking different approaches to prepare for that time," Pilipski recently told Business Insider. "We think communication and expression in the camera is the best use of such technology right now, and puts us in a position to act and innovate when the time is right."
Betsy Kenny Lack makes sure Snap looks hip and cool to the world, including both marketers and consumers.
As Snap's Head of Global Brand Strategy, Lack is the engineer behind Snap's own carefully constructed consumer-facing image.
She is behind all of Snap's buzziest brand activations, from the giant yellow Ferris wheel at Cannes in 2017 to Snap's Partner Summit this month.
She joined Snap in 2016 from Vanity Fair, where she ran the magazine's "New Establishment" conference.
Ben Schwerin is the architect of some of Snap's most notable partnerships.
Snapchat pioneered the Stories format and Schwerin took it everywhere.
As VP of Partnerships, Schwerin's job is help Snapchat land the best partnerships and partner integrations, whether it is getting the NBA or the VMA red carpet to the app, or taking Stories to third-party partner apps like Tinder and Houseparty.
Before Snapchat, Schwerin cofounded a business communications firm called Fenway Strategies, and also served as an aide to Bill Clinton and musical group U2.
Jennifer Stout is tasked with maintaining Snap's ties with Washington.
At a time when the relationship between government regulators and Silicon Valley is increasingly fraught, Stout's role has become even more paramount.
As Snap's VP of Policy, she is in charge of maintaining Snap's ties with Washington DC, as well as other governments across the world where the company operates.
Stout has been in government through most of her career, starting as a legislative aide for then-Senator Joseph Biden in 1998, followed by a stint at MetLife as its VP for International Government Affairs, before serving as the Department of State's deputy chief of staff prior to Snap.
Katherine Tassi ensures that consumer privacy remains at the heart of every core product at Snap.
Most tech companies are scrambling to make consumer privacy a growing priority, but Snap claims it has always upheld it given its focus on ephemerality and private communication.
As its VP and Deputy General Counsel for Privacy and Product, Tassi ensures that consumer privacy remains at the heart of every core product and feature that Snap develops from a legal standpoint.
Prior to Snap, she was the Senior Legal Director of Privacy and Data Security at Uber, and also the Associate General Counsel and Head of Data Protection at Facebook.
Radhika Kakkar keeps Snap's operational machinery running from a business perspective.
As VP of Operations, Kakkar works closely with Gorman to ensure that everything on the business side continues to operate smoothly.
She oversees all of Snap's customer support, and also helps manage revenue and user operations, as well as trust and safety.
Before she joined Snap in 2015, Kakkar was the managing director of Accenture.
Luke Kallis is a longtime sales leader, and helps maintain Snap's relationship with some of its biggest brand partners.
Kallis is another direct report of Gorman's, and is credited with helping to sell and pull off Snapchat's first splashy ad all the way back in October 2014: a video trailer for Universal's horror film Ouija.
He is the Head of US Sales for Snap, and looks after some of its biggest brand partners, from Universal and Warner Bros. to Nike and Dunkin'.
Prior to Snap, he was an SVP at Vevo, and also worked at IGN Entertainment, MySpace, and Facebook.
Matt Moore ensures that Snapchat maintains a safe environment for people to communicate in.
While Moore is a fairly recent recruit to the executive team, as Snap's Chief Information and Security Officer, he is charged with an important task.
Like his predecessor Jad Boutros, Moore is also a Google alum, and a 10-year veteran of Google security, where he was most recently Engineering Director for Security and Privacy.
He oversees privacy engineering, spam, and any issues with abuse in Snapchat. He also manages corporate tech security.
Nima Khajehnouri is the engineering brain behind Snap's burgeoning ad platform.
Snap didn't build a scalable, automated advertising platform overnight. And as Senior Director of Monetization Engineering, Khajehnouri had a huge role to play in it.
He succeeded Stuart Bowers and leads engineering for Snap's ad business, which has become increasingly technical as it transitions to an auction with built-out measurement for buyers.
He has a deep background in ad tech and ad measurement and monetization, which makes him a good fit for the role.
Peter Sellis has been the driving force behind Snap's ad products.
From sponsored face lenses and geofilters to shoppable Snap Ads, Peter Sellis has been the driving force behind some of Snapchat's most widely used ad product offerings for brands.
He also led the development of Snap Publisher, as well as Snapchat Ads Manager's self-service tool for marketers, making their lives easier.
While he has been the leader of Snap's ad products for a while, his role as Senior Director of Product was expanded recently to focus on key core products beyond ads as well.
Before Snap, Sellis was the COO of influencer network HelloSociety, which was acquired by The New York Times.
David Roter was just poached by Snap to lead its relationship with ad agencies across the globe.
As the latest executive hire, Roter is Snap's VP of Global Agency Partnerships and is in charge of managing its agency relationships at a time when it's gunning for a broader suite of advertisers.
Roter is a Twitter veteran, where he spent five years. Before that, he spent approximately 10 years at ESPN. Most recently, he spent two years as the head of global revenue and partnerships for The Players' Tribune.
Roter's agency and video experience play directly to Snap's ambitions, as Business Insider reported, as it looks to push its unskippable video ads format "Commercials" and seeks to deepen its relationship with agencies.
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