Bill Ready | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1979 |
| Education | |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Title | CEO of Pinterest |
| Board member of |
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William J. Ready (born 1979 [1] [2] ) is an American technology executive. Since June 2022, he has been the chief executive officer (CEO) of Pinterest, the visual search and discovery platform, and a member of the board of directors. He is also on the boards of Williams-Sonoma, Inc. and ADP. [3] [4]
Prior to Pinterest, Ready was president of commerce, payments and next billion users (emerging markets) at Google from 2020 to 2022. [5] Before Google, he was chief operating officer of PayPal, and CEO of Venmo and Braintree, leading both startups from pre-revenue to billions of dollars in revenue and through their acquisition by PayPal. [6]
Ready has played a significant role in advancing digital payments, financial technology and commerce. [4] [5] [6] He has also been an advocate for youth online safety and responsible technology policies. [7] [8]
Bill Ready grew up in Elizabethtown, Kentucky [1] and worked as a mechanic at his parents' auto repair business from the age of 13. He graduated as valedictorian at University of Louisville where he earned a Bachelor of Science in information systems and finance. [9] Ready then went on to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School. [10]
Early in his career, Ready was a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company, where he advised financial technology companies. [10] Later, Ready was an executive in residence at Accel Partners, a venture capital firm. He also was the president of iPay Technologies [1] and an early engineer at two more startups, Emphesys and Netzee. [10]
Ready was CEO of Braintree from its early days before it had its first payment processing product. He led the build of Braintree's first payment processing product, its first native mobile payment APIs and its acquisition of Venmo in 2012 when Venmo was still in beta and had fewer than 3,000 users. In 2012, under his leadership, Braintree acquired Venmo. [11]
In 2013, Ready joined PayPal when its then-parent company, eBay Inc., acquired Ready's startup, Braintree Payments Solutions LLC. [6] [12] After the acquisition, Ready continued as CEO of both Braintree and Venmo. [6] [5] [3] He later led PayPal's global product and engineering organization. [12]
In October 2016, Ready was appointed PayPal's chief operating officer (COO). [6] [12] In this role, he was responsible for product, technology, engineering, and end-to-end customer experiences for PayPal's consumer, merchant, Braintree, Venmo, Paydiant, and Xoom businesses. [5] He also was the co-chair of PayPal's Operating Group. [5]
Ready held the position of COO until 2019 before departing to join Google. [12]
In January 2020, Ready joined Google as the company's new President of Commerce, Payments and Next Billion users. [5] During his tenure, he led strategies to extend digital commerce offerings. He worked in this role until he joined Pinterest. [3]
In June 2022, Pinterest announced the appointment of Ready as its new CEO, succeeding company co-founder, Ben Silbermann. [3] Under Ready, Pinterest's valuation doubled to approximately $28 billion in 2024. [1] During his time as CEO, Ready has been an advocate for advancing online safety and addressing harmful effects of social media. [7] [13] [14] [8] He has advocated for phone-free schools, digital IDs for age-verification purposes, [8] and youth online safety overall. [7]
Ready lives in California with his wife and child. [1]
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