Pinterest has named James Dibbo as Chief Financial Officer, recruiting one of Amazon's most senior advertising and entertainment finance executives to run the global finance organisation of the visual discovery platform.
Dibbo reports to Chief Executive Bill Ready and takes up the role later this month. He succeeds Julia Brau Donnelly in an orderly handover, with his predecessor remaining available to the company in an advisory capacity for a short period afterwards to support the transition.
He arrives after roughly a decade at Amazon. Most recently he was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Global Entertainment, Advertising and Corporate Development, a brief that covered the finances of Amazon Ads, Prime Video, Amazon MGM Studios, Music, Audible and Twitch, alongside corporate development work across that portfolio. Earlier in his time at the group he served as Chief Financial Officer of Worldwide Consumer and as Chief Financial Officer of North America Consumer.
Before Amazon he was Chief Financial Officer of the restaurant group P.F. Chang's, and held senior finance positions at Tesco and at BT Group. He began his career at PwC in London. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Cardiff University and is a Chartered Accountant.
"James is an exceptional finance leader with the operating rigor, strategic range and growth mindset," Ready said, adding that Dibbo "has led complex global businesses at scale, helped build high-performing teams".
"I have long admired Pinterest's distinctive role at the intersection of visual search, shopping and advertising," Dibbo said. He added that the company "has a compelling opportunity to help people turn inspiration into action".
The hire is a pointed one. Pinterest earns the large majority of its revenue from advertising, and the strategic question in front of it is how far it can convert browsing intent into measurable commerce outcomes that advertisers will pay a premium for. Dibbo spent his most recent years running the numbers behind an advertising business that has grown into one of the largest in the world, and behind a group of entertainment properties whose economics turn on exactly the same question of attention converted into transactions.
His record also sits on both sides of the retail and media divide. Experience at a large grocery retailer and at a restaurant operator gives him a direct view of the merchant economics that Pinterest's shopping ambitions depend on, while the telecoms and professional services background supplies the capital discipline that public market investors have demanded of mid-capitalisation technology companies since the end of the cheap money era.
For the finance function itself, the appointment points at continuity of direction rather than a reset. The company has framed the change as a planned succession, with the outgoing chief financial officer staying close enough to hand over cleanly, and the incoming one inheriting a reporting cadence and a cost base that have already been tightened over recent years.
