Pinterest Names Twitter Executive Todd Morgenfeld as First CFO
October 04 2016 - 3:50PM
Dow Jones News
A senior finance executive at Twitter Inc. is joining Pinterest
Inc. as its first chief financial officer, signaling the
image-discovery site may be laying the groundwork for an eventual
initial public offering.
Todd Morgenfeld, a vice president of finance at Twitter, will
leave the social-media service roughly a year and a half after
being recruited by finance chief Anthony Noto.
"We're really excited to bring on Todd," said Pinterest CEO Ben
Silbermann in an interview on Tuesday. He said Mr. Morgenfeld's
experience working at companies including Twitter, Hewlett-Packard
Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. makes him well-suited to be
Pinterest's first CFO.
Mr. Silbermann said Pinterest doesn't have any plans for an IPO.
The hiring "reflects that we're scaling the business up," he
said.
Mr. Morgenfeld didn't immediately return requests for comment.
Twitter didn't have immediate comment.
Natalie Fair, Pinterest's current head of finance since 2012, is
"looking at other opportunities within the company," Mr. Silbermann
said. Pinterest's finance team has about 40 people.
Pinterest is trying to become a search engine for ideas, a
destination where brides, home decorators and amateur cooks can
find and save images of things they like. The business goal is to
enable advertisers and retailers to market and offer products
related to those images.
The San Francisco company is a closely watched startup because
of its immense valuation. Investors, which include Goldman Sachs,
venture-capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and FirstMark
Capital and hedge fund Valiant Capital Partners, valued Pinterest
at $11 billion last year.
Last year the company generated roughly $100 million in revenue,
a person familiar with the matter has said. The six-year-old
company has focused on expanding its advertising offerings and
building its international presence. The company said last year it
reached 100 million monthly active users.
In his brief tenure at Twitter, Mr. Morgenfeld served under two
chief executives, most recently under co-founder Jack Dorsey, whose
return one year ago brought hope that he would be able to revive
user growth and advertising revenue. In recent weeks, companies
such as Salesforce.com Inc. and Walt Disney Co. have started to
consider making acquisition offers, people familiar with the matter
have said.
In May 2015, Mr. Morgenfeld joined Twitter from Hewlett-Packard
where he was senior vice president of treasury, financial analytics
and corporate development, joining a slate of other veteran finance
executives to bolster the team under Mr. Noto, a former Goldman
Sachs banker.
Mr. Morgenfeld previously held posts at Goldman Sachs and Silver
Lake, where he worked on the private-equity firm's buyout offer for
Dell Inc.
Write to Yoree Koh at yoree.koh@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 04, 2016 15:35 ET (19:35 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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