Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann is Stepping Down

Ben Silbermann , the longtime CEO of Pinterest resigned on tuesday. During after-hours trading, shares increased by more than 5%. Starting on Wednesday, Bill Ready, who formerly oversaw Google’s commerce division, will assume leadership. Ready served as PayPal’s senior vice president and chief operational officer before joining Google. He had not more than three years with Google.

With more than 400 million active users each month, Pinterest has traditionally prioritised its advertising business. However, it has changed recently to give e-commerce a higher prominence. The business said earlier this month that it was buying The Yes, an A.I.-driven purchasing platform for fashion labels.

“Helping Pinners purchase, test, and act on all the wonderful ideas they see is the main goal of our upcoming chapter. Bill is a fantastic transitional leader. He is a is quite knowledgeable about payments and commerce “In a statement, Silbermann stated. As the business’s first Executive Chairman, Silbermann, who co-founded it in 2010 and brought it public in April 2019, will hold this position. Silbermann had to deal with problems such as unmet user expectations for quarterly reporting and a number of employee grievances, including those of two Black former Pinterest employees whose public accusations of discrimination and retaliation served as the foundation for a California workforce non-disclosure law.

Shares of Pinterest are roughly 76 percent below their 52-week highs and down 45.8 percent year to date. Following earlier unsuccessful attempts, Ready was given the responsibility of overseeing Google’s most recent efforts to compete in e-commerce with companies like Amazon. For instance, Ready and his team released a tool earlier this year that enables users to quickly go from store listings on a Google search page to a retailer’s checkout page.