Robinhood has appointed former Google top executive Aparna Chennapragada as its first chief product officer. In this role, she will be overseeing the company’s product, design and research initiatives, the company said in a statement.
Chennapragada is joining the online brokerage firm after a 12-year stint across various product roles at Google. Most recently, she served as the vice president and general manager for the company’s consumer shopping vertical. She also led the search giant’s augmented reality and visual search products.
Overall, Chennapragada has over 20 years of experience in product development, design and strategy including stints at companies like Akamai and Oracle. She is also currently a board member at financial giant Capital One.
“I spent my career at Google building products that help billions of people in their everyday lives. So I couldn’t be more excited to join Robinhood and help more people build their financial future and personal wealth,” Chennapragada said. “Robinhood has built a uniquely accessible product that has opened up the financial markets to millions of people.”
This appointment comes at a time when Robinhood is preparing for an initial public offering in the coming months after witnessing massive growth during the pandemic-induced shelter-in-place mandate. It was last valued at $ 11.7 billion.
The company, however, faced significant backlash from its customers earlier this year for curbing the purchase of stocks like Gamestop during the recent trading frenzy fueled by small retail investors. This also led to chief executive Vlad Tenev testifying in front of US Congress last month to explain their actions.
