Snap makes latest exec appointment in monetization chase

Snap has tapped former Meta executive Ty Ahmad-Taylor as its vice president of organic growth and product marketing, according to details shared with Marketing Dive. In the new position, Ahmad-Taylor will oversee the company’s advertising and revenue product marketing. He will also lead Snap’s go-to-market and product strategy around its advertising business. He will report to Snap’s senior vice president of growth, Jacob Andreou. 

Ahmad-Taylor was previously vice president of product marketing at Meta, a position he had held since 2017. In that role, Ahmad-Taylor led a team of 800 people between engineering and sales. Prior to Meta, Ahmad-Taylor served as CEO of THX, vice president of SmartTV services at Samsung and was founder and CEO of FanFeedr, a personalized sports news and information site.

“[Ahmad-Taylor] has a strong track record scaling products in our space, and I look forward to our work together to align our offerings and teams around customer success,” said Jerry Hunter, Snap’s chief operating officer, in a statement provided to Marketing Dive.

Ahmad-Taylor joins Snap as the company adjusts to shifting consumer and regulatory concerns regarding social media. In August 2022, the company outlined a bold restructuring plan that included laying off 20% of the company’s workforce. In a post on the company’s blog, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel announced a shift by the company to focus on three strategic priorities: community growth, revenue growth and capitalizing on augmented reality. 

That reorganization also saw the promotion of Hunter to his current COO role, a newly created position that oversees the company’s monetization efforts. Since then the company has made several significant hires, including the appointment of former Meta exec Ajit Mohan as president of its Asia-Pacific business, Ronan Harris as president of EMEA, Biswanath Panda as vice president of ads engineering and Lars Hirsch as vice president of ads product — the latter three all former Google execs.

In October 2022, Snap reported 6% year-over-year revenue growth for the third quarter, despite the ongoing macroeconomic and privacy challenges that have affected the entire social media industry. The renewed focus on AR technologies — particularly its Shopping Lenses — has also resulted in several high-profile partnerships with companies including Amazon, Disney, American Eagle and Walmart.