Messaging app Snapchat has finally hired a head of finance: former Mattel executive Drew Vollero.
The fast-rising startup has chosen Vollero as its new VP of finance and acting chief financial officer, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Vollero will report to Snapchat’s chief strategy officer, Imran Khan, a former investment banker the company hired last December.
Snapchat’s top finance position has been vacant since late last year.
Snapchat has risen from a college side project to a social media empire with more than 100 million daily active users and advertising deals with the likes of McDonalds and Coco-Cola. Vollero will be tasked with building its finance department and prepare for an eventual IPO. In May, Co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel said at a tech conference that the company absolutely plans to go public, though he didn’t indicate any timing.
Snapchat is not the only tech “unicorn”—a startup valued whose valuation is at least $1 billion—that’s been in need of a seasoned financial chief who could potentially steer it into becoming a publicly traded company. Last month, home rental company Airbnb hired former Blackstone Group (BX) finance chief Laurence Tosi, while ride-hailing company Uber is still searching for its own after Brent Callinicos left in March.
But Vollero’s background makes him somewhat of a surprising choice. Having spent a decade and a half at toy maker Mattel (MAT) and before that, at consumer brands like Taco Bell and its parent company Yum! Brands (YUM), Vollero isn’t a tech company executive, nor a Wall Street veteran.
With that said, Snapchat’s main revenue source at the moment is Discover. Its take on bringing news and content to its audience in short and fun forms that appeal to its audience largely made of teens and young adults. It’s also experimenting with payments and other forms of ads, putting it more akin to a consumer company than many of its peers in the technology industry.
It’s unclear whether Vollero will become Snapchat’s permanent CFO, though a spokesperson told the Journal that the company has “every expectation” he will.
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