Pinterest Nabs Google VP Jon Kaplan to Lead Global Sales

Jon Kaplan, a Google sales VP and long-time Googler, is joining Pinterest as head of global sales, Re/code has learned.

Pinterest confirmed the move. As did Google, but the search giant didn’t comment on his replacement.

At Pinterest, Kaplan will fill the sales role vacated by media exec Joanne Bradford, who left the visual discovery startup in June. Kaplan will report up to Pinterest’s “monetization” chief Tim Kendall, who oversees all ad products and partner marketing. Kaplan, who is now based in New York, will move to San Francisco and start at Pinterest on March 7.

“We’re excited to have Jon Kaplan join Pinterest,” said Kendall. “He has tremendous digital advertising experience and we’re looking forward to even stronger growth of our global ads platform under his leadership.”

A Googler since 2003, Kaplan spent his first stint on the search giant’s financial services unit, before shifting to the sales and operations team in 2012. Kaplan has some 300 reports, according to a person familiar with the matter.

He arrives at Pinterest after a few key personnel shifts. There’s Bradford, a marquee hire. And there’s Don Faul, another ex-Googler who came to Pinterest to run its operations, but he left a year ago in a “personal decision.”

Pinterest’s sales operation is dwarfed by those from Google and Facebook, yet the private company wants to claim bigger chunks of digital ad budgets, particularly those dedicated to search and shopping.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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