On August 28, Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) said that the Chief Financial Officer, Julia Donnelly, will leave the company on October 30, kicking off an external search for her replacement. Vikram Naidu, the company’s vice president of finance and business operations, will serve as interim principal financial officer in the meantime. Donnelly is departing to join a private, early-stage company after roughly three years in the role, a stretch CEO Bill Ready credited with 11 consecutive quarters of double-digit revenue growth. The timing puts a spotlight on whether Pinterest can keep that momentum going without her.
The Numbers Still Impress
The financial picture Donnelly leaves behind is a strong one. In the second quarter of 2026, Pinterest generated $1.18 billion in revenue, up 18% year over year and the fourth straight quarter above $1 billion. Global monthly active users climbed to 640 million, an 11% increase and the eleventh consecutive quarter of double-digit user growth, with Gen Z now making up more than half the platform’s user base.
The United States and Canada region, Pinterest’s most lucrative market, shows the acceleration most clearly. Revenue there grew 18%, a five-point jump from the prior quarter, helped by a restructured sales team and tighter account coverage for mid-market advertisers. Average revenue per user in that region rose 14% to $8.30. Management has also leaned hard into artificial intelligence, rolling its conversational Pinterest Assistant out to most US users by the end of July and pointing to open-source models that run at less than 8% of the cost of comparable closed systems.
Profitability improved alongside growth. Adjusted EBITDA reached $311 million, a 26% margin that expanded 130 basis points from a year earlier, and free cash flow totaled $1.3 billion over the trailing twelve months. Pinterest used some of that cash to retire nearly 111 million shares this year, spending more than $2 billion on buybacks.
Cracks Beneath The Surface
Donnelly’s exit adds a layer of uncertainty to a company that just forecast a deceleration. Pinterest’s own guidance calls for third-quarter revenue growth of 13% to 15%, down from 18% in the second quarter, a slowdown management attributes to the shift in when Prime Day fell, a smaller currency tailwind, and continued pressure from Asia-based cross-border retailers hit by regulatory actions in Europe. Competition from Meta’s Instagram for digital advertising dollars is compounding the squeeze.
Costs are also climbing faster than the top line in places. Cost of revenue jumped 25% in the second quarter on additional GPU capacity and the full-quarter impact of the tvScientific acquisition, while non-GAAP operating expense rose 13% on brand campaign spending and AI-related hiring. Ad impression growth decelerated to 16%, as Pinterest laps the earlier ramp in previously undermonetized international markets.
There has also been notable insider selling. Director Benjamin Silbermann sold 93,750 shares between August 18 and August 19, 2026, for roughly $2.2 million, cutting his direct stake by 87% to 13,996 shares under a trading plan he adopted in February. He still holds a large indirect derivative position, but the sale lands as the stock carries a one-year return of negative 34% through August 19, 2026, a reminder that Pinterest’s five-year track record has trailed the broader market by a wide margin.
Wall Street’s Mixed Signals
Hedge fund interest in Pinterest held steady at 49 funds last quarter, unchanged from the quarter before, suggesting institutional conviction neither grew nor shrank around the CFO news. Short sellers remain heavily positioned, with 11.81% of the float sold short. Shares trade at just 11.98 times forward earnings as of August 28, a multiple that assumes little of the double-digit growth management has delivered.
An Open Question For Investors
Pinterest heads into this leadership transition with revenue and margins moving in the right direction, even as guidance points to slower growth ahead. Julia Donnelly leaves credited with three years of double-digit expansion, handing the books to Vikram Naidu while the board searches for a permanent replacement. Whether the AI-driven push into Performance+ and Pinterest Assistant keeps translating into pricing power, or whether cross-border pressure and cooling impression growth prove more than temporary, is the tension a new CFO will inherit.
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