Pinterest adds new chief business and marketing officers

• "We think there's a much bigger story for us to tell, from a marketing perspective, that goes along with that shopping and commercialization growth," Ready tells Axios.
• Both executives will report directly to Ready.

Zoom in: Brown will be tasked with continuing to expand Pinterest's advertising business globally and to grow small and medium-sized business partnerships.

• He will also be responsible for scaling Pinterest's content business as it becomes a bigger revenue source for the company.
• The new chief business officer role "brings together all customer-facing touch-points at a moment where we have a number of new revenue opportunities," Ready said.
• Several of Pinterest's existing senior executives will now report into Brown, including chief content officer Malik Ducard and Julie Towns, who leads Pinterest's ads product marketing.
• With the hiring of Brown, who starts Tuesday, Pinterest's longtime chief revenue officer Bill Watkins will depart, Ready confirmed.

What they're saying: Brown hopes his unique background across a number of consumer apps will help Pinterest scale into its next phase.

• "Whether it's Spotify, DoorDash or BuzzFeed — At all of these companies, I've turned consumer demand to strong advertising opportunities by deepening client relationships, customer operations and content partnerships," Brown said.
• He lauded his time at DoorDash, noting that it gave him "a front row seat to how world-class operators execute."

Zoom out: Since Ready joined Pinterest three years ago, the platform's user base has grown bigger, more international and younger.

• As of the third quarter in 2025, the company had achieved nine consecutive quarters of record user figures.
• Pinterest's annual revenue has posted consistent year-over-year gains, with 2024's full-year revenue notably jumping 19% compared to 2023.
• Shopping, not browsing, is now the platform's primary use case.

Yes, but: Despite Pinterest's positive momentum, Wall Street has remained tepid about the stock, due mostly to broader fears about the ad market.

• Ready hopes Cheever, who he called "one of the best marketers in the world," will help drive home the message to investors and users alike that there's "a good business in positivity."

• "By tuning AI for positivity and rejecting engagement via enragement," Pinterest can be a brand "that can matter a lot more," he said.

The big picture: Pinterest has invested a lot of time and energy on communicating the benefits of mental health and positive interactions on its platform in keeping it relevant, especially for young users.

• Cheever said her goal is to help marketers understand that the platform is now positioned to "really automate and personalize that relevance, and it will never feel creepy or weird. It will feel rich and useful."
• Last year, the company became one of the first major social platforms to endorse phone bans in schools.
• Cheever will be responsible for "making sure that every person out there understands exactly what Pinterest stands for," Ready said.

What to watch: Cheever says a new consumer campaign is already in the works.

• She says there's a big opportunity to position the brand as a "visual search platform that has a really positive role in people's lives, and it's a place they want to spend their time and they want to shop."

What's next: Pinterest reports its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 earnings results on Feb. 12.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to say Julie Towns leads Pinterest's ads product marketing (not its advertising business).