San Francisco based web and mobile application Pinterest has appointed its first-ever CMO. The company has taken on board Andréa Mallard, the former chief marketing officer of the Gap-owned line of athleisure clothing Athleta.
Following the appointment, Mallard will report to the visual search company’s chief operating officer Francoise Brougher, who joined in February. Prior to this, he worked for payments company Square.
Talking about Mallard, she previously spent four years as CMO of digital health company Omada Health and eight years with IDEO, where she led the company’s global brand strategy practice. Here, at Pinterest, she will be responsible to oversee Pinterest’s global marketing and creative teams.
“I am very excited that Andrea has joined our team,” said Francoise Brougher, Pinterest’s chief operating officer. “Her wealth of experience in building great brands will be an asset to our company as we continue to expand globally. She is exactly the right leader to help us illustrate why hundreds of millions of people rely on Pinterest to get inspiration and do what they love.”
Founded in 2010, the company is led by the co-founder and chief executive officer Ben Silbermann. Most recently, Pinterest had secured more than $1 billion in venture capital funding.
The company claims to have around 280 million people using the platform every month, up from 200 million last September. Given Pinterest’s obvious platform for retailers and advertising, it might seem surprising that the popular social media brand has taken so long to appoint a CMO. But Pinterest has been actively staffing up its C-suite in the last year.