Snap Shares Fall as Chief Strategy Officer Resigns
*By Alex Heath and Kavitha Shastry*
Snap Chief Strategy Officer Imran Khan, one of the company's top-paid executives and a central figure in its high-profile IPO last year, is stepping down.
In a statement filed with the SEC Monday, Snap said Khan is pursuing other opportunities. A person familiar with the matter told Cheddar that he's planning to start his own tech investment firm.
Khan will continue to serve in his role on an interim basis and help recruit a replacement Chief Business Officer, he said in an internal memo sent to Snap employees on Monday that was obtained by Cheddar. His departure is not the result of any disagreement with the company, according to Snap's filing with the SEC.
"There is never a perfect time to say goodbye, but we have a stellar leadership team in place to guide Snap through the next chapter," Khan said in a statement.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel added, “Imran has been a great partner building our business. We appreciate all of his hard work and wish him the best."
Formerly a banker at Credit Suisse, Khan joined Snapchat in early 2015 to help build its ad business and get the company ready for its public offering. He oversaw all business functions and was deeply involved in Snap's switch from traditional ad sales to making the bulk of its revenue through programmatic advertising.
While CEO Spiegel prefers to be closely involved with Snapchat's product development, Khan championed the app's nascent ad formats like sponsored geofilters and augmented reality lenses. Aside from Spiegel, he was one of a select few executives who represented Snap publicly at industry events.
Between Khan's start and Snap's March 2017 IPO, the company grew daily active users from 80 million to about 160 million. Quarterly revenue grew from about $4 million to more than $160 million.
But Snap has struggled amid competition from Facebook and Instagram, shedding three million users in its latest quarter. The company has also suffered a string of executive departures since its public offering, including Chief Financial Officer, General Counsel, SVP of Engineering, Chief Security Officer, [VP of Sales](https://cheddar.com/videos/exclusive-snap-vp-of-sales-leaves-the-company), VP of Product, VP of Hardware, and [VP of monetization engineering](https://cheddar.com/videos/snap-vp-of-monetization-leaves-for-tesla).
Shares marked their seventh day of losses in eight trading days Monday and are trading near all-time lows below the $10 mark. That's a loss of more than 40 percent from its $17 IPO price.
Khan received roughly $145 million in stock for signing on at Snap in 2015. Last year he earned total compensation of more than $100 million, second at the company only to Spiegel.
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
