Pinterest Taps Former Exec From Coworking Brand The Wing as Consumer Marketing Head
Celestine Maddy left the women-focused company in July after just 6 months
Pinterest has hired Celestine Maddy as head of consumer and brand marketing, the platform confirmed to Adweek today. Maddy was most recently svp of marketing and communications at women-focused coworking space The Wing, which she departed in July according to her LinkedIn page.
In the new role at Pinterest, which she started Monday, Maddy oversees global consumer brand strategy and campaigns, product marketing, social media and content innovation for the platform. She reports directly to Pinterest chief marketing officer Andréa Mallard.
“As the world’s inspiration company, we heavily bias towards inspirational leaders, and Celestine brings that to the table in spades,” Mallard told Adweek. “But we were equally impressed by her curiosity, intelligence and willingness to question the status quo. Pinterest is where people come to create a life they love, and I am certain Celestine is going to help us continue to ensure the Pinterest brand is increasingly beloved the world over.”
Prior to joining The Wing in February, Maddy held senior marketing roles at Foursquare, Reddit and consumer product development company Quirky. She has more than 15 years of experience working in tech startups, media and ad agencies, including as the founder of industry blog AgencySpy in 2008.
The Wing, where Maddy spent just six months, was embroiled in controversy over the summer after reports surfaced of racism against Black and brown employees at several of the company’s locations. In response, CEO and founder Audrey Gelman stepped down from her role on June 11. She later lamented in a letter to former employees posted to Instagram that leadership had upheld “the kind of societal inequality we set out to upend.”
When Gelman resigned, she was replaced by a three-person Office of the CEO, which Maddy was part of alongside co-founder and chief operating officer Lauren Kassan and svp of operations Ashley Peterson.
Pinterest also had its share of turmoil over the summer—a season largely characterized by a national reckoning with historical and systemic racism after the police killing of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis and the ensuing worldwide protests.
In June, two former Pinterest employees, both Black women, publicly accused the platform of racial discrimination in a series of Tweets. After initially denying the accusations, Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann sent an email to employees acknowledging that “parts of our culture are broken,” and outlined a series of steps the company would take to improve awareness and understanding of racism and bias as well as increase diversity among leadership, according to Bloomberg News.
