Pinterest CFO exits for startup, leaving $4B AWS bill and slowing growth
What's the deal? Pinterest chief financial officer Julia DonnellyDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → will step down on October 30 to join a private, early-stage company. Vikram Naidu, the company's vice president of finance and business operations, becomes interim principal financial officer the same day, while Pinterest runs an external search for a permanent successor. Shares fell as much as 3.8% in after-hours trading on Friday.
Who's leaving? Donnelly joined Pinterest in 2023 from Wayfair, where she was global head of finance, and served roughly three years as CFO. Chief executive Bill ReadyDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → credited her with helping deliver 11 consecutive quarters of double-digit revenue growth. A regulatory filing said her departure was not the result of any disagreement over operations, policies, or practices.
Who takes over? Naidu, 40, has held his current role since March 2024. Before Pinterest, he worked at Verkada and Lyft, where he led financial planning and analysis. Putting an internal executive in place while searching externally lets Pinterest keep continuity now and pick a different kind of finance chief later.
The numbers: Second-quarter revenue hit $1.18 billion, up 18% year over year, with monthly active users reaching a record 640 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $311 million, a 26% margin, and free cash flow reached $270 million, even as Pinterest booked a GAAP net loss of $47 million. The company has completed more than $2 billion in share buybacks this year at an average price of $18.17.
What could go wrong? The outlook is softening. Pinterest expects third-quarter revenue of $1.19 billion to $1.21 billion — growth of 13% to 15%, down from 18% in the second quarter. It competes for ad budgets with far larger platforms, and Meta is on course to overtake Google in digital advertising this year, driven largely by Instagram.
The inheritance: Two deals from Donnelly's tenure will shape the company after she leaves. Pinterest acquired connected-TV advertising platform tvScientific and signed a $4 billion cloud-services partnership with Amazon Web ServicesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. That commitment is one a CFO negotiates but a successor must manage — a heavy long-term obligation as revenue growth cools.
The signal: A finance chief departing for an early-stage startup after a strong run is a vote of confidence in the private markets over a scaleup that is throwing off cash but facing decelerating growth. Pinterest's next CFO inherits solid fundamentals and a live capital allocation programme, but must steer them through a tougher advertising market dominated by bigger rivals.
Read more: thennextweb.com, Bloomberg, Reuters
Image credit: Mitesh Dhruv
