Snap loses 'respected' monetization leader to Uber amid broader executive shakeup

• Snap is trying to find ways to drive revenue outside of advertising.
• An executive leading this effort just left the company after only a year for Uber.
• Other executives have left in recent months while Snap has made several ad-focused executive hires

Snap's executive ranks are looking much different as the company continues to struggle with profitability and steady revenue growth.

Biswanath Panda, who joined only a year ago as vice president of monetization engineering for Snapchat, leading all monetization efforts on the app, left Snap late last month, according to two people familiar with the company. He is now vice president of engineering at Uber.

Panda is said to have been "respected" by his reports and many in the engineering department at Snap, despite staying at the company for just a year. During this time Snapchat launched a number of new attempts to drive revenue outside of digital advertising, the core of its business, including a subscription model for additional features and better Stories monetization for creators. Yet, Snap has been unable to return to the growth and brief period of profitability it saw during the pandemic, leading to cost cutting and a mass layoff last year.

Panda's exact position has not yet been filled. Although Snap has promoted its subscription feature Snapchat+ as a new success story, it remains to be seen if the company can generate a meaningful amount of revenue outside of its core advertising business. Panda reported to Nima Khajehnouri, Snap's vice president of engineering, who has been at the company since 2015.

Khajehnouri oversaw all of engineering for almost a year in the wake of Jerry Hunter being promoted as Snap's first chief operations officer. Snap, however, recently hired Eric Young as its new senior vice president of engineering, with Khajehnouri now reporting to him. Young came from several years at Google Cloud, as Reuters reported. He also spent more than a decade prior at Amazon, where Hunter worked for many years before joining Snap. 

Workers in engineering now question if Khajehnouri will stay long at Snap, according to two people familiar with the company, given he was effectively "passed over" for a permanent promotion. One former employee noted that several long-time executives have left recently. Jacob Andreou is one. He joined Greylock earlier this year after being at Snap also since 2015 as its senior vice president of product and growth. Peter Sellis, too, left Snap a few months ago after 8 years with the company leading its business product division, taking on a similar role with Discord. 

A Snap spokesman pointed out the company's newer hires but declined to comment. Khajehnouri and Panda did not respond to requests for comment.

Snap has indeed made some other high-level hires recently. Darshan Kantak joined in April as Snap's new senior vice president of revenue product, a position focused on the company's advertising business. He previously worked at Google as its vice president of search advertising. Another ad-focused hire is Rob Wilk, who is now Snap's president of Americas, after heading up advertising at Microsoft. Along with Patrick Harris in a newly created role as Snap's senior vice president of partnerships, and David Sommer as head of verticals. Both executives came from several years at Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook.

Are you a Snap employee or someone else with insight to share? Contact Kali Hays at khays@insider.com, on secure messaging app Signal at 949-280-0267, or through Twitter DM at @hayskali. Reach out using a non-work device.

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