Pinterest, the growing, female-dominated social network, has hired Facebook PR hand Barry Schnitt to head communications and public policy.
Schnitt |
Schnitt is slated to start next month. He joined Facebook in 2008 as director of corporate comms. and public policy after eight years in comms. at Google. He did a year on the agency side at FitzGerald Communications before its acquisition by Omnicom.
Pinterest, which counts more than 11.7M monthly active users, acts as a de facto online scrapbook, allowing users to pull images and content from around the web to place on their “boards.” Pinterest content often includes products and its users tend to purchase more online than via other social networks, according to some estimates, drawing interest from marketers.
Last week, the company said it raised $100M in a venture financing round, leading to a $1.5B valuation, up from $200M last year.
One notable speed bump for Pinterest has been copyright concerns, but the company has moved in recent months to strengthen its rules and shift liability toward its users.
The OutCast Agency, which has strong ties with early Pinterest investor Andreessen Horowitz, works PR for the Palo Alto-based company.