Boomloaded

Snap has hired two executives to take over responsibilities for the departing Imran Kahn, the outgoing chief strategy officer

Jeremi Gorman, former head of global ad sales for Amazon, has been named chief business officer, and Jared Grusd, who was CEO of the Huffington Post, joins as the chief strategy officer, according to an email CEO Evan Spiegel sent Wednesday morning to staff.

The hires helped pump the company’s stock, which rose modestly in morning trading.

Gorman spent the last six at Amazon, where she oversaw business intelligence and analytics and the international expansion of Amazon’s advertising business. She’ll be charged with bolstering the performance of Snap’s ad business.

Grusd has held leadership positions at Spotify, Google and Oath, parent company of The Huffington Post. He’ll look to extend the Snap’s reach to the billions of people who don’t currently use the ephemeral messaging app.

Snap announced the new executive hires as it faces intensifying competition from Facebook’s Instagram. A newly released report from Piper Jaffray revealed that Instagram is now the the most widely used social network among teens, with 85% using it at least once a month.

The company reports earnings on Thursday.

Here’s Spiegel’s email:

I’m happy to announce two significant additions to our leadership team today that will help us deliver on the long-term promise and potential of Snap.

Jeremi Gorman will be our Chief Business Officer, managing Global Business Solutions, Global Online Sales, Customer Operations, and Business Marketing.

Jeremi joins us from Amazon, where she is the Head of Global Advertising Sales. In six years of increasing leadership responsibilities at Amazon, she oversaw business intelligence and analytics and the international expansion of Amazon’s advertising business.

Helping our partners build their businesses is a core element of Snap’s product value and I’m deeply proud of the great work you have all done to make sure our advertisers’ return on investment is unrivaled among our peers. Jeremi joins us with proven expertise and talent that will make our platform even better for our partners and I am excited to have her on our team.

Jared Grusd will be joining Snap as our new Chief Strategy Officer, overseeing Content, Global Strategy, Partnerships, and Corporate Development. Jared, who is an attorney by training, has held leadership positions at Spotify, Google and Oath, and for the past three years, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of The Huffington Post.

In his new role, Jared will work to expand Snap’s footprint and develop key relationships around the globe to scale user growth. We have an immense amount of running room to grow globally through the billions of people who do not yet use Snap. Getting them to experience the speed, ease and fun of Snap – that Snap is the fastest way to communicate — will be a key in the coming months and years.

I know our goals for the coming years are ambitious. But I have great confidence in our ambition because we have led our industry time and again in developing products people love. That’s all thanks to you, our incredibly smart, creative and kind team.

I’m proud to have Jeremi and Jared join our team, where they will play an important part in shaping the next chapter for Snap. Thank you again for all of your hard work, and thank you in advance for welcoming Jeremi and Jared into our Snap family.

Evan