Pinterest's chief financial officer, Julia Brau Donnelly, is stepping down at the end of October, the company confirmed late Friday, and investors did not wait for an explanation before selling — shares slid in after-hours trading within minutes of the announcement.

Donnelly, who has held the CFO post since 2023, will stay through Oct. 30 to oversee an orderly handover, according to Bloomberg and a Reuters report. She is leaving to take a role at a private, early-stage company, the reports said. Vikram Naidu, Pinterest's vice president of finance and business operations, will serve as principal financial officer on an interim basis while the company runs an external search for a permanent replacement.

Pinterest shares fell as much as 3.8% in after-hours trading Friday following the announcement, according to Investing.com, a jittery reaction for a stock already under pressure. Earlier this month Pinterest guided third-quarter revenue growth to just 13% to 15%, down sharply from the 18% it posted in the second quarter — a slowdown Reuters described as "a sign of tough competition for digital advertising from bigger players including Meta's Instagram."

A Rocky Send-Off

Donnelly joined Pinterest from online furniture retailer Wayfair, where she was global head of finance. During her three years at the image-search and shopping platform, the company completed its acquisition of connected-TV ad firm tvScientific and struck a $4 billion cloud-computing partnership with Amazon Web Services. Pinterest CEO Bill Ready credited her with steadying the company's books through a stretch of rapid expansion.

"Donnelly's leadership helped support a period in which we delivered 11 consecutive quarters of double-digit revenue growth, significantly increased operating rigor and expanded margins to ensure the ongoing health of our business," Ready said in a statement carried by Reuters.

Executive-suite exits at publicly traded companies routinely rattle short-term traders regardless of how amicable the split, since a finance chief's departure can raise questions about strategy, succession and — until a replacement is named — who is minding the numbers. For now, that job falls to Naidu on an interim basis as Pinterest's board searches for Donnelly's permanent successor, with the company set to report third-quarter results in the weeks after her Oct. 30 exit.