Pinterest today announced its newest addition, Sabrina Ellis, to take on the role of lead product offering. Ellis spent the last 12 years at Google, where she led work on Google Pixel. Prior to that, she spent eight years at Yahoo (AapkaDost’s parent company) in a variety of leadership roles.
Sabrina will join Pinterest on May 15. She will replace Pinterest’s current senior vice president of product, Naveen Gavini, who will remain with the company until the end of September.
In her new role, Ellis will lead the product management and design teams, reporting directly to Pinterest’s CEO, Bill Ready.
The overarching goal of the company is to make everything on Pinterest shoppable. For example, in July 2022, Pinterest launched an API for Shopping so merchants can create engaging shopping experiences for users (aka Pinners).
It also rolled out a Shop tab, which features are now integrated throughout the Pinterest experience so businesses can show off all of their shoppable products.
On its latest earnings call, Ready said that Pinterest is also working on making videos buyable.
In addition, the company is currently testing ways to integrate Shuffles collage content into Pinterest, starting with shopping.
Ellis will be responsible for helping accelerate this goal by further integrating the Pinterest shopping experience into the home feed and search. In today’s announcement, the company reiterated plans to make Pins shoppable.
“I’m thrilled to be part of the great team at Pinterest. In a world where finding inspiration is more important than ever, I’ve long admired how Pinterest stands out as the platform that helps people turn real life dreams into real world action,” Ellis said in a statement. “Throughout my career I have been passionate about providing users with experiences that improve their lives and promote positivity. Pinterest is right for me to pursue this passion, and I’m excited to create a world where inspiration and emotional well-being so authentically go hand in hand.”
“I’m thrilled that Sabrina is driving the next phase of innovation at Pinterest while leading some of the most talented and hard-working individuals I’ve ever had the privilege of working with and learning from,” said Gavini.
After more than 11 years, Gavini is stepping down to pursue the next chapter in his career, the company wrote.
Gavini has worked on nearly every major new product at Pinterest, including his time as an engineer for Guided Search, the search engine launched in 2014 to provide users with an in-depth discovery experience using descriptive guides.
“When I joined Pinterest, I was motivated by the idea of building a unique platform where people can discover inspiration for all aspects of their lives,” added Gavini. “More than a decade later, I am grateful for the opportunity to help scale Pinterest into a place that inspires hundreds of millions of users around the world.”
As of February, Pinterest has 450 million monthly active users worldwide.