Emily White pictured as director of business operations for Instagram
The Facebook director responsible for bringing advertising to Instagram has been snapped up by ephemeral photo and video-sharing app, Snapchat, as its new COO. But can Emily White crack the popular app’s monetisation conundrum?
In an interview with AllThingsD, White revealed that the opportunity knocked in recent weeks and was one she could not ignore. “It happened really quickly, but to have an actual COO role in one of many companies that is disrupting the communications arena is one I could not pass up,” she said.
White is not the only person at Facebook to find herself attracted to Snapchat and the company’s CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel recently made headlines for turning down an acquisition offer worth US$3bn from the social networking giant.
Seeing 400m messages shared daily at last count, Snapchat has reportedly caught the eye of many a tech titan, though Spiegel seems intent on keeping the business independent.
White believes she has been recruited to help grow and scale the business – and what better woman than she who was tasked with implementing ‘enjoyable’ advertising on photo-sharing app Instagram, which itself was snapped up by Facebook for US$1bn last year.
Snapchat is now likely on the road to another investment round to the tune of millions of dollars. The company previously raised US$75m from a number of investors during its most recent funding round – and that was before its multi-billion-dollar offer.
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