Pinterest Taps Ex-Amazon Exec as CMO to Fuel Commerce Ambitions

Pinterest is continuing its transformation into a full-scale shopping hub with the addition of two key executives. Amazon’s former global brand and marketing vice president, Claudine Cheever, will assume the role of CMO, while DoorDash and Spotify veteran Lee Brown will join as chief business officer, a newly created role.

The appointments come at a dynamic time for the 15-year-old social platform. When Bill Ready—who was PayPal’s COO before becoming commerce chief for Google—took over as CEO of Pinterest in 2022, he laid out the platform’s ecommerce ambitions.

“As someone who has spent most of my career in commerce and payments, it’s so clear to me that Pinterest has the opportunity to build something unique,” Ready said on LinkedIn at the time. “In the next phase of our journey, we will help people engage more deeply with all the inspiring products and services they find on our platform so they can build their best lives.”

In a post earlier today, Ready suggested that these two new hires will play key roles in those plans.

“Lee is a proven business leader with deep experience leading global sales and content teams at beloved consumer apps and publishers,” Ready wrote. “Claudine has spent the past decade leading marketing for the world’s largest online retailer.”

In her own LinkedIn post, Cheever expressed enthusiasm for joining Pinterest for its “next chapter” while also reinforcing the platform’s roots as “a place where people come to feel inspired, take action, and shop.”

Cheever replaces former CMO Andréa Mallard, who’d held the post for nearly seven years and has joined Microsoft AI as CMO.

From inspiration to purchase

Pinterest debuted in 2010 as a digital cork board where users could collect images and videos (“pins”) of things that sparked their imaginations in areas like apparel, home decor, and travel. Its original business model was heavily dependent on advertising.