BuzzFeed hires Twitters Jinen Kamdar as its new VP of Product

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BuzzFeed hires Twitter’s Jinen Kamdar as its new VP of Product

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Jinen Kamdar has spent more than seven years as Twitter, most recently serving as the director of product for Twitter’s media tools. Now he’s joining an actual media company — namely, BuzzFeed, where he’ll be the new vice president of product.

He doesn’t start his new job until Monday, May 15, so he said it’s too early to know exactly what he’ll be working on. He did say he’s excited to collaborate with “all these talented writers and producers” at BuzzFeed and build tools to “not only create content, but also very quickly learn how the content is performing.”

Kamdar, who’s been based in San Francisco, will be splitting his time between BuzzFeed’s New York, Los Angeles and (to a lesser extent) SF offices. He’s replacing Chris Johanesen as VP of Product, and he’ll be reporting to Publisher Dao Nguyen. (Johanesen is now principal product manager overseeing “large parts” of the BuzzFeed website.)

Moving from a tech company like Twitter to a digital media company like BuzzFeed might seem like a big leap, but Kamdar said there are some shared traits between his old employer and his new one. (It’s also worth noting that the two companies are partnering, with BuzzFeed creating video content specifically for Twitter.)

“When I look at BuzzFeed, what attracts me are the things that make companies like Twitter special, too,” Kamdar said. “They think about everything in first principles. Because it’s a pure digital media play, they basically embraced the Internet and mobile and social in a way that is unrivaled in the media industry.”

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May 12, 2017 at 08:51AM