Linktree is a product-led organisation, and has been since day one, focused on growing and innovating our offerings to meet the needs of the over 45M Linkers who rely on Linktree to unify, engage and monetize their online presence. And to kick off the new year, I am incredibly excited to announce that we’ve hired three new technology leaders to help take Linktree, and the creator economy at large, to the next level in 2024. I have appointed Jiaona “JZ” Zhang as Linktree’s new Chief Product Officer reporting directly to me. Additionally, we’ve welcomed a powerhouse duo of Martin Gould and Johnny Hunter to lead machine learning, personalization and AI at Linktree. 

 

Chief Product Officer, Jiaona Zhang (JZ)

Jiaona “JZ” Zhang joined Linktree as our new Chief Product Officer, and officially began work in late Q4 2023. JZ wowed myself, the executive leadership team and the board during our search for our next product leader. She’s whip smart, has built elegant and powerful products at scale, comes with a stellar reputation along with a track record to back it up. JZ joins us from Webflow, a hyper growth unicorn revolutionizing the way websites are built and hosted online. At Webflow she served as SVP of Product for the organization and during her time shipped visually beautiful, creator-centric products. 

Before that, she spent four years at Airbnb where she led the product team for the homes platform overseeing a 150 person team responsible for building reusable product building blocks and core services powering the Homes business– Airbnb’s core product. She’s also held leadership roles at the likes of WeWork, Dropbox and (somehow) also finds time to teach a course on product management at Stanford.

Her extensive experience in product strategy and development, as well as her passion for creating innovative and user-centric solutions, align perfectly with our mission at Linktree. I’m also extremely fond of her hyper user-centric approach to building products, specifically focusing on a shift in mindset from simply delivering a functional product (MVP) to creating one that customers genuinely love (MLP). JZ is based in San Francisco with her husband and two young children, and likes to spend time being a creator herself. 

Personalization Leads: Martin Gould and Johnny Hunter

Martin Gould and Johnny Hunter have joined Linktree, focusing on how ML, AI and personalisation can unlock step-change innovations for our company. Martin and Johnny are serial entrepreneurs, with deep expertise in these areas.

Their first startup, Sonalytic, built a next-generation audio-identification technology, which helped address a wide range of challenges in the music industry. Sonalytic was acquired by Spotify in 2017, where Martin and Johnny worked together until 2021. The duo have worked together extensively on machine learning, discovery and personalisation for consumer products. Most recently, they built a consumer-facing movie discovery platform and an AI copilot for DTC eCommerce brands. Martin joined as Senior Director, Personalisation, and Johnny as Principal Data Scientist. This is a great step towards our long term vision of Linktree being a one-stop-shop for expression, discovery and monetisation for all creators online.

Martin and Johnny will use their expertise to advance what personalisation, discovery, AI and machine learning look like for us at Linktree. They are currently digging in on social commerce, after our launch of the Linktree Storelink in Q4, and will be focused on looking at how Linktree can super serve our Linkers, through an advanced marketplace for brands and creators looking to join efforts to expand their reach.

Martin and Johnny are both based in London but will be spending a significant amount of time in both Australia and California (Linktree’s US hub). It’s always been our strategy to bring on board the best talent possible and I’m sure you will agree that Martin and Johnny will enable us to supercharge how Linkers grow and monetize their followings online. 

I know JZ, Martin and Johnny will each have a massive impact on our growth, product, Linkers, and how we realize the Linktree Vision: to empower anyone to curate and grow their digital universe. We’ve got a big year ahead solving problems for our Linkers and I can’t wait for the world to see what we’ve got cooking.