by Gavin O’Malley @mp_gavin, March 1, 2017

Pinterest just hired Chris Amen-Kroeger as its new head of ads engineering, the company is expected to announce Wednesday.

Tim Kendall, Pinterest president, said Amen-Kroeger’s expertise fit perfectly with the company’s needs. “Chris brings to Pinterest significant ads experience in search and video which are two strategic focus areas for us,” Kendall stated.

Effective immediately, Amen-Kroeger now oversees the development and release of ad products, including targeting features, ad formats and measurement tools.

Based out of Pinterest’s San Francisco headquarters, Amen-Kroeger will report to its head of engineering, Li Fan.

Most recently, Amen-Kroeger served as VP, engineering at Yahoo. He joined Yahoo by way of its acquisition of BrightRoll, where Amen-Kroeger served as SVP of engineering.

Pinterest continues to hold its own at the interaction of social media and commerce. The pin-based platform has grown to more than 150 million users — up from around 100 million about a year ago – according to figures released late last year.

Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO at Pinterest, recently said he was most excited about the diversity of the platform’s community. Over half of people on Pinterest — and 75% of new signups — are from outside the United States, he said.

Moreover, 40% of consumers joining Pinterest are men, which represents a 70% increase year-over-year. Investors continue to watch for signs that Pinterest is preparing to go public. Fueling their interest, the company recently brought on Todd Morgenfeld — formerly VP of finance at Twitter — as its first chief financial officer.

Pinterest reportedly expects to rake in $3 billion in revenue in 2018. If accurate, that would be dramatically higher than the roughly $100 million in revenue Pinterest reportedly took in last year.

To drive revenue growth, Pinterest is pushing brands and businesses to set up Promoted Pins. To encourage them, the visual search and sharing network recently began rolling out a new “Promote” button with which brands and businesses can launch Promoted Pin campaigns in as little as nine seconds.

Once Pins have been “promoted,” partners can then review or edit their campaigns using Pinterest’s Ad Manager self-service ad tool. To help businesses create Pins tailored to their particular objectives, Pinterest also recently released a creative best practices guide.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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