Snap Inc. restructuring: Team size reduced by about 20%, new president roles drafted for APAC, EMEA, Americas

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The company will provide outplacement support according to local market regulations and processes, and launch an opt-in talent directory to help departing team members connect with new opportunities.

Snap has recently announced its decision to reduce the size of its team by approximately 20%.

In a message to employees, Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel said the scale of these changes vary from team to team, depending on the level of prioritisation and investment needed to execute against the group's strategic priorities. "The extent of this reduction should substantially reduce the risk of further reductions, while balancing Snap's desire to invest in its long-term future and reaccelerate revenue growth," he said.

"Overall, the size of our team will remain larger than it was at this time last year," Speigel further expressed. 

"We will miss the many kind, smart, and creative team members who have contributed to Snap’s growth and I am deeply sorry that these changes are necessary to ensure the long-term success of our business. The friendship and camaraderie we all share as a team make these changes particularly painful, and we will make every effort to treat our departing team members with the respect and gratitude that they deserve."

Outplacement support for affected employees

As shared by Spiegel, team leaders will notify their impacted team members "as soon as possible" and provide them with detailed guidance.

For those affected in the US, the company will provide at least four months of compensation replacement, as well as financial assistance to enroll in COBRA, so that team members will have until the end of the year to find new opportunities while still receiving compensation and health benefits from Snap.

Meanwhile, teams outside of the US will follow local processes required in each country and tailor compensation and benefits to reflect local norms with the intent to provide similar levels of support regardless of geography, Spiegal said.

It will also provide outplacement service support and launch an opt-in talent directory to help departing team members connect with new opportunities.

Spiegel further acknowledged that these changes may have a particularly serious impact on team members relying on work authorisations to live outside their home country. Therefore, Snap will provide these impacted team members additional support and flexibility to minimise disruption to their immigration status.

As he shared in the statement, following Snap's 2023 financial planning and reprioritisation process, the group's "forward-looking revenue visibility 'remains limited'", and its current year-over-year QTD revenue growth of 8% is "well below what it was expecting earlier this year". 

New approaches ahead

Moving forward, Spiegel shares more on Snap's plans to restructure its business to increase focus on its three strategic priorities:

• community growth,
• revenue growth, and
• augmented reality.

Projects that don’t directly contribute to these areas "will be discontinued or receive substantially reduced investment." This will include discontinuing investments in Snap Originals, Minis, Games, and Pixy, among other areas. Snap has also started the process of winding down its standalone applications Zenly and Voisey.

Snap is also re-organising its team to "better meet the challenges of the current macroeconomic environment and to make as much progress as possible, as quickly as possible", in the areas of its business that it is able to control.

"In particular, there remains significant opportunity to improve coordination and prioritisation across our engineering, sales, and product teams."

In an effort to realise this opportunity, Spiegel shared that Snap is promoting Jerry Hunter to the role of Chief Operating Officer, effective 31 August 2022 in the US (1 September in Asia). Hunter will lead Snap's monetisation efforts across its three operating regions (EMEA, APAC, and Americas), as well as its growth, partnerships & content, AR Enterprise, and SMB teams. He will also continue to lead the engineering teams that currently report to him.

Finally, Snap is also realigning its regional operational leadership by creating a new President role in each of the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions. The group's three regional presidents will provide in-market leadership, lead cross-functional efforts across the business, oversee local operational needs, and lead its go-to-market strategy. 

Ending off, Spiegel said: "Changes of this magnitude are never easy, and we must act decisively to meet this moment as a team. I am proud of the strength and resilience of our team as we have navigated the myriad challenges of growing our business in a highly competitive industry during uncertain and unprecedented times.

"Thank you for your dedication, hard work, and commitment to our community."

Image / Shutterstock

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