UPDATED: After more than eight years at Snap, Ben Schwerin — the company’s top content and partnerships executive — is leaving next month, Variety has learned.
Schwerin, who is Snap’s senior VP, content and partnerships, informed team members of his decision to leave the company at the end of March to “pursue a new opportunity.” (Read his memo below.) Schwerin, who joined Snap in January 2015, was elevated to his current role in 2021.
Schwerin is joining Coatue, a tech-centric investment management company, where he will be based in L.A. and focus on investments in early and growth-stage consumer internet companies, Forbes reported.
Schwerin’s departure comes as the company’s overall revenue growth has slowed dramatically in recent quarters amid a fall-off in ad spending. For Q4 2022, it reported revenue flat with the year-ago period. Last summer, Snap cut 20% of its workforce, laying off almost 1,300 employees. Among other cost-cutting moves, it ended funding of nearly all Snapchat original series.
That said, Snapchat continues to grow its user base — and the company said total time spent watching Spotlight user-generated content on the app grew over 100% year-over-year in Q4. In addition, Snap said 17 content partners reached over 50 million global viewers each on Snapchat Discover in the fourth quarter.
Executives on Snap’s Content and Partnerships teams who have reported to Schwerin include David Brinker, senior director of content partnerships; Sam Corrao Clanon, director of content and Spotlight who joined from TikTok in 2021; Courtney Barmack, senior director of strategy and operations who joined from YouTube this past August; Konstantinos “KP” Papamiltiadis, VP of platform partnerships who joined from Meta in August 2021; and Anne Laurenson, senior director of global carrier partnerships, who joined from Google in November 2021.
Here’s the memo Schwerin sent to Snap staffers Tuesday:
Dear Team,
It’s a very bittersweet day for me. After more than eight years, I’ll be leaving Snap at the end of March to pursue a new opportunity. It’s impossible to express in words how much this company has meant to me, professionally and personally. I could not have asked for a more exciting, rewarding experience. I could not have asked to work with a group of such incredibly talented, creative people.
Evan and Bobby took a chance on me — betting on someone who knew a lot about relationships but had never worked at a tech company. The early days starting our Partnerships team with Juan David Borrero were a crazy, intense whirlwind, and I loved it. Snap was a lot smaller, but in a lot of ways, not that different than it is today. We came up with big creative ideas, and then figured out how we could build the right partnerships to bring them to life. The DNA here is still the same, and it’s always been my favorite part about my job.
I always said that at Snap, partnerships can be the rocket fuel that unlock the incredible potential of the amazing products we build. We put our partners first — because we know we can’t be truly successful unless they are too.
I deeply believe in Snap’s mission, our leadership, and in all of my incredibly talented colleagues. I think we have limitless potential, and our best days are still ahead. I’m so confident because I know there are so many of you who feel the same way as I do about our unique opportunity to bring people closer together and make a positive impact on the world.
In the coming weeks, Jerry [Hunter, Snap’s chief operating officer] and I will be working on a transition plan for the Content & Partnerships organization. The goals will remain the same – to work effectively across Snap to grow our community, drive revenue, and lead in AR. Thank you so much to everyone who has made my time at Snap so special and unforgettable.
Ben
From Variety US