Facebook has scored a new talent win today—Univision’s Ted Zagat. Yes, of Zagat Survey fame. Ted is the son of Tim and Nina Zagat, the founders of the local entertainment and restaurant guide mini-empire.
Zagat was the President of his family business from 1999 to 2007. From 2007 until recently, he managed Univision’s Franchise Development & Strategic Partnerships group, which included licensing, e-commerce, live events, and financial services businesses as well as strategic partnerships. He also held jobs at Boston Consulting Group and and DLJ.
It appears that Zagat has hopped over to Facebook to work on its payments business. From the email he sent to his colleagues and friends: I wanted to share some exciting news: after a great run at Univision, I recently joined Facebook, where I’m helping to build the Payments business. Payments are one of the ways that Facebook monetizes its offering. Payments currently center on Facebook Credits, a virtual currency launched in 2010 to facilitate transactions. My team focuses on strategy, partnerships, and operations, while supporting the growth of our Advertising and Local businesses. Zagat also confirmed the move on his LinkedIn profile.
We know Facebook has big plans for Payments, most recently establishing a subsidiary called Facebook Payments to help manage payments to developers related to Facebook Credits. And for Facebook, Zagat seems like an ideal candidate to help expands Facebook Credits, perhaps into local deals. He can draw upon his experience with local merchants at Zagat Guides and clearly he has many years working in business development.
We’ve contacted Facebook for confirmation and will update when we hear back.
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...
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