Grindr Accelerates Growth of Its Advertising Business and Expands Its Engineering Team With Two Executive Hires
Grindr Inc. (NYSE:GRND) today announced the addition of two senior leaders as it continues to transform the ways that gay, bi, trans, and queer people around the world connect: Brian Anderson has joined the company in the newly created position of Vice President of Advertising, and Jianrui Wang has joined as Head of Data Engineering. Anderson and Wang join Grindr to accelerate growth in the company's Advertising business and expand its Engineering team, respectively.
Anderson, who will be responsible for driving the growth of Grindr's advertising business, is a seasoned leader in identifying and developing innovative partnerships across media and entertainment businesses. Anderson joins Grindr from YouTube, where he served as Global Head of Music and Podcasts in the company's Advertising Solutions business, spending over a decade developing groundbreaking collaborations that engaged customers while driving monetization and supporting the artist and creator ecosystem. Earlier, Brian held several strategic roles at YouTube including on its US Agency Sales and internal creative teams. Prior to YouTube, Brian managed sales development at Bloomberg, enabling the company to attract new advertisers looking to engage with its audiences.
With its new Vice President of Advertising position, Grindr is expanding its potential to serve the diverse preferences of its users by delivering the most relevant advertisements possible in a privacy-first way. Reporting to CFO Vanna Krantz, Anderson joins the company as it looks to monetize features and functionality that bring value to its users and expand its platform to deliver the global Gayborhood in their pockets.
"I am incredibly excited to welcome Brian to accelerate growth in Grindr's advertising business," said Grindr CFO Vanna Krantz. "His leadership and experience in transforming the ways that media and entertainment brands engage with their audiences will be crucial in establishing critical partnerships, delivering an enhanced advertisement experience for our users, and growing this important business line for Grindr."
Wang is an experienced data engineering leader with a proven track record of building and leading teams that drive innovation for technology companies. Wang most recently served as Director of Data Engineering at Peloton Interactive, joining the company before its public offering and advancing to eventually manage divisions focused on data analytics and infrastructure initiatives that enabled a data-driven enterprise. Wang earlier served as a Senior Software Engineer at Datameer, building cloud-based SaaS for Big Data analytics and leading recruiting and scaling efforts for the company's Cloud division. Prior to Datameer, Wang held senior engineering roles at Ladders and Syncsort, designing and implementing several new products to support data integration and enterprise efficiency.
Reporting to Grindr's SVP of Engineering Joel Keating, Wang will provide crucial data leadership as Grindr continues to strengthen its product to serve a rapidly growing and global user base. He will also be instrumental in expanding Grindr's engineering team, based out of its new hub in Chicago.
"Jerry is a seasoned data leader who brings a wealth of experience working at innovative technology companies," said Grindr SVP of Engineering Joel Keating. "I look forward to working with him closely to scale our Engineering division in Chicago, and I am thrilled to add his expertise to our team as we seek to enhance our app experience and innovate our platform to best serve the diverse preferences of our users around the world."
About Grindr Inc.
With more than 13.7 million monthly active users, Grindr has grown to become the Global Gayborhood in Your Pocket, on a mission to make a world where the lives of our global community are free, equal, and just. Available in 190 countries and territories, Grindr is often the primary way for its users to connect, express themselves, and discover the world around them. Since 2015 Grindr for Equality has advanced human rights, health, and safety for millions of LGBTQ+ people in partnership with organizations in every region of the world. Grindr has offices in West Hollywood, the Bay Area, Chicago, and New York. The Grindr app is available on the App Store and Google Play.
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