Dive Brief:

• Reddit has appointed Google veteran Jyoti Vaidee to the newly created role of vice president of ads product, effective immediately, according to a company blog post.
• Vaidee spent over a decade on Google’s monetization strategy, most recently leading product for the company’s Display Ads unit. At Reddit, the executive is tasked with guiding ads product strategy, execution and management.
• Vaidee will report to Roelof van Zwol, who is taking on the expanded role of vice president of ads product and engineering. Her hire sees the departure of Shariq Rizvi, previously Reddit’s executive vice president of ads monetization and a key architect of its current ad infrastructure. 

Dive Insight:

Vaidee brings a wealth of ad product experience to Reddit, which is quickly scaling its global monetization efforts following an initial public offering in March. The hire demonstrates that Reddit is looking to established heavy hitters like Google as it maps out a path to becoming a significant player in the competitive digital advertising sector.

In her 11-plus years at Google, Vaidee oversaw the release of impactful offerings, such as Dynamic Product Ads. She also helped drive product expansion across Google Shopping ads and YouTube, and previously worked on widely used consumer platforms including Microsoft’s Outlook email client and Xbox video game console. 

The executive is expected to keep Reddit on the leading edge of ad innovation, taking on the mantle from Rizvi, who is leaving the company after five years heading up the ads product organization. Rizvi struck important deals, such as Reddit’s 2022 acquisition of the audience insights firm Spiketrap, along with rolling out what have become staple ad products for the site. Reddit in April debuted a shopping ads format in beta called Dynamic Product Ads, its first launch post-IPO. Rizvi’s position will be sunset with the transition. 

Reddit’s first quarter as a public company impressed investors, with ad revenue up 39% year-over-year to $222.7 million. The IPO arrived as the digital ad market rebounded following a tumultuous 2022-23. 

“This is an exciting time for Reddit as a newly public company with so much untapped potential. The platform is leading the way in creating community and fostering authentic connections with very real commercial results,” Vaidee said in a press statement. “I’m looking forward to helping advance Reddit’s ads business and driving increased value for users and advertisers alike.”

Over 82 million users visit Reddit daily to browse forum communities, known as subreddits, dedicated to a wide array of interests and fandoms. The site currently sits at an interesting place in the digital ecosystem. Many consumers now include Reddit in their Google queries to surface more relevant, useful results. Reddit and Google in February struck a reported $60 million content licensing deal to help better train the latter’s artificial intelligence models.