Before she secured her dream job at Pinterest, Annie Ta was just a fan of the up-and-coming platform.
“I loved it so much that I actually found a way to reach out to Ben [Silbermann] and Evan [Sharp] and Paul [Sciarra], our co-founders, to talk to them about how much I love Pinterest,” says Ta, 36. She started her career at Facebook but felt strongly about Pinterest as a platform, going so far as to attend backyard barbecues hosted by the three founders to try and get a foot in the door.
"I would show up at these [events] and was just waiting for the moment where I would find the right job for me at Pinterest," Ta says.
See all of Ad Age's 40 Under 40 honorees.
In 2019, Ta became head of inclusive product and audience growth at Pinterest, where she helps to conceive and build software that makes the platform more useful and accessible to everyone. Features that allow users to sort search results by skin tone or hair texture, a true game-changer in the world of fashion and beauty content, are just some of the innovations that came out of Ta's office.