Pinterest brings on Google Pixel VP to fill chief product officer position

Pinterest announced today its newest hire, Sabrina Ellis, to take on the role of chief product offer. Ellis spent the last 12 years at Google, where she led the work on Google Pixel. Previously, she spent eight years at Yahoo! (the parent company of TechCrunch) in numerous 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 at the company until the end of September.

In her new role, Ellis will lead the product management and design teams, reporting directly to Pinterest CEO Bill Ready.

The overarching goal for the company is to make everything on Pinterest shoppable. For instance, 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 for businesses to show off all their shoppable products.

During its latest earnings call, Ready mentioned that Pinterest is also working on making videos shoppable. Additionally, the company is currently testing shopping capabilities for Shuffles, its college-making app.

Ellis will be responsible for helping accelerate this goal by further integrating Pinterest’s shopping experience into the home feed and search function. In today’s announcement, the company reiterated plans to make pins shoppable.

“I’m thrilled to join the incredible 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 helping people turn real-life dreams into real-world action,” Ellis said in a statement. “I’ve been passionate throughout my career about offering users experiences that enhance their lives and foster positivity. Pinterest is a natural fit for me to pursue this passion, and I’m excited to create a world where inspiration and emotional well-being go so authentically hand-in-hand.”

“I’m excited for Sabrina to steer the next phase of innovation at Pinterest while leading the most talented and hardworking individuals I’ve ever had the privilege to work with and learn from,” Gavini said.

After 10 years, Gavini is stepping down in order to pursue the next chapter in his career, the company wrote.

Gavini has worked on almost every major new product at Pinterest, including his time as an engineer for Guided Search, its search engine that launched in 2014 to give users an in-depth discovery experience with the use of descriptive guides.

“When I joined Pinterest, I was motivated by the idea of building a first-of-its kind platform for people to discover inspiration for all aspects of their lives,” Gavini added. “More than a decade later, I’m grateful for the opportunity to have helped scale Pinterest to a place that inspires hundreds of millions of users around the world.”

As of February, Pinterest has 450 million monthly active users worldwide.