Robinhood, the popular commission-free stock and cryptocurrency trading app company, announced that it has hired CapitalG partner Gretchen Howard to head up operations at the company. Recently, Robinhood also hired Amazon executive Jason Warnick as its chief financial officer as well. Rumor has it that Robinhood is going to pursue an initial public offering next year so the company is ramping up its hiring efforts to do so.
Prior to joining Robinhood, Howard was a partner at Alphabet’s growth investments arm since 2014. Howard first joined Google in 2006 as the head of the company’s office in San Francisco. And she also worked as a managing director in sales and business operations at Google. Before Google, Howard worked as a vice president at Fidelity Investments.
Gretchen Howard / Photo: Robinhood
Howard also oversaw CapitalG’s first investment in Robinhood. And she led the deal through CapitalG’s David Lawee. Founded by Vlad Tenev and Bbaiju Bhatt, Robinhood raised a whopping $363 million Series D round of funding led by DST Global earlier this year. That round of funding was at a valuation of more than $5 billion. And Robinhood raised a total of more than $539 million in equity so far, according to TechCrunch.
“I’ve been inspired by the velocity with which Robinhood builds and launches high-quality products and share their passion for democratizing financial services. I am thrilled to join the Robinhood team and look forward to working with Vlad and Baiju to further their mission and bring this best-in-class product to more customers around the globe,” said Howard in a statement. “While it’s bittersweet to leave Alphabet after 12 years, I’m excited to remain in the Alphabet family and work closely with the CapitalG team from the portfolio side.”
