According to a report by All Things D, which Pinterest has now confirmed, San Francisco Chronicle president Joanne Bradford is joining the social sharing startup as its head of partnerships. The company says she will be focused on “both commercial and content partnerships globally,” which will have her developing partnership strategies and overseeing the sales organization, said ATD’s sources on the matter.
Bradford will report to Don Faul, Pinterest head of operations when she starts in December, they said. Her role will also give her influence in helping determine the products Pinterest develops for its advertiser partners.
Today, Pinterest is only beginning to experiment with bringing in revenue. The company just last month launched its first ad product in the form of “Promoted Pins,” for example. These are paid placements that allow retailers and other businesses to have their pins appear within Pinterest’s search results and category feeds.
Prior to the Chronicle, Bradford was chief revenue and marketing officer at Demand Media, and worked in senior revenue roles and media roles at Yahoo and Microsoft. Her time spent in the industry makes her a valuable addition to the startup as it tries to make good on what’s now a massive $3.8 billion valuation, thanks to its recent funding round of $225 million. As we previously noted, Pinterest may have to try some non-traditional means to earn enough money to justify the investment. Instead of charging for impressions or mobile clicks alone, it may need to think about a revenue-share model instead, where it gets paid for leading users to buy things on advertisers’ e-commerce sites, after users first find those items on Pinterest.
Bradford had joined the Chronicle in May, making hers a short tenure there.
Image credit: Vistage.com