To overcome the slowdown and accelerate the growth, Shopify announced a major shake-up. The company brought two significant changes in its top leadership by introducing new Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Replacing CFO Amy Shapero, who has been associated with the company for last four years, Jeff Hoffmeister, a long-time investment banker with Morgan Stanley has been hired for the position. Similarly, Kaz Nejatian, Vice President for Product will now double up as Shopify‘s Chief Operating Officer. He will succeed Toby Shannan, who is retiring from the company after 12 years.
Shopify founder and CEO Tobi Lütke is hopeful of renewed growth with the help of experience by the new entrant Hoffemeister and “innovative and strategic product leader” Nejatian. Here’s all we know about Shopify’s new CFO and COO.
Toby Shannan (COO) is retiring after 12 years with Shopify and will join the Board of Directors. I’ve asked @CanadaKaz to take over as VP Product & COO. Amy Shapero (CFO) will leave after the next quarter and then transition the role to Jeff Hoffmeister https://t.co/hhPaWV7URo
— tobi lutke (@tobi) September 8, 2022
Jeff Hoffmeister
Jeff Hoffmeister has an experience of over 20 years in investment banking. He has served as a Managing Director for Morgan Stanley in its Technology Investment Banking Group. He manages the New York team and co-head Americas Tech Banking Team. Prior to this, he has served as the head of European Tech Investment Banking and as an Executive Director of the Tech Investment Banking team in Boston. Before joining Morgan Stanley, Hoffmeister held various roles like finance, M&A and auditing at other companies including Price Waterhouse Coopers.
He has led high-profile tech companies in a wide variety of transactions, including equity and debt financings, follow-on offerings, convertible notes, initial public offerings and M&A transactions. Interestingly, he has even led IPO for Shopify. A graduate from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Hoffmeister has a Master in Business Administration from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. He also has a license of certified public accountant (CPA).
Kaz Nejatian
Kaz Nejatian, Vice President of Product, has lead a cross-functional team responsible for developing and delivering entrepreneurial tools on Shopify, for example- Shopify Capital, Shopify Balance, Shop Pay, Shopify Point of Sale, integrations with social media platforms and much more.
“The tools required to succeed in the new world of commerce shouldn’t be held exclusively by the largest companies in the world. Shopify merchant services builds the products and tools that the largest companies in the world use and makes sure that every Shopify merchant has access to them,” Nejatian has written in his Linkedln profile. He has even served as VP & GM of Shopify Money.
It is now public that Tobi has asked me to serve as Shopify’s next COO in addition to my current role as VP of Product. I am thrilled to take on this new challenge and to support Shopify’s growth, revenue, customer success and merchant services teams. https://t.co/wAp3rXMGlj
— Kaz Nejatian (@CanadaKaz) September 8, 2022
Son of a small business owner, at the age of 12 Nejatian was hacking credit card terminals, says Shopify website. Early in his career, Nejatian worked as a lawyer, later he co-founded and served as the CEO of a payment technology company, Kash.
Early Player
According to Shopify, Kash was one of the early players in providing small merchants access to mobile payments for brick-and-mortar stores. It was acquired by one of the largest fintech companies in the United States in 2017. Nejatian then served as a product Lead for Payments and Billing at Facebook, now Meta. Prior to this, he worked as a Director of Strategic Planning at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. He claimed to have designed and implemented Canada’s Startup Visa.
Nejatian is a graduate of Queen’s University’s School of Business and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
