Reddit has hired a former Time Inc. executive to help build out an advertising business

Reddit has hired Jen Wong, a media executive and former COO of Time Inc., to be its new COO; Reddit hopes she will help build the company into a legitimate digital advertising business.

Wong has a lot of experience in the world of digital media. Before Time Inc., she worked at AOL and then digital lifestyle company PopSugar, where she was chief business officer. (When Wong left Time Inc. in January after the company’s $1.8 billion sale to Meredith, she received a nice golden parachute of almost $6.8 million.)

Now she’ll be tasked with helping to grow Reddit’s advertising business — the company’s blog post says she’ll “oversee business strategy” — which is in its infancy. Reddit still manually approves all ads that run on its service, for example, so it has a long way to go.

On top of that, Wong will be in charge of “diversity and inclusion” at Reddit, reporting directly to CEO Steve Huffman.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via