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Imran Khan, Snap’s chief strategy officer and one of the few executives remaining at the struggling company since its 2017 public offering, is stepping down.
On Monday, the company said in a regulatory filing that Mr. Khan would remain at the company until his replacement was hired. Afterward, he is expected to set up a firm that will both help and invest in technology start-ups, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
“There is never a perfect time to say goodbye,” Mr. Khan said in the filing, “but we have a stellar leadership team in place to guide Snap through the next chapter, and I plan to stay on to ensure a very smooth transition.”
He is the latest top executive to leave Snap at a turbulent time for the once high-flying social network, which is run by Evan Spiegel. The company’s former head of engineering, Tim Sehn, left in December; its head of product, Tom Conrad, was replaced in March; and Snap brought in a new chief financial officer, Tim Stone, in May.
Snap, the maker of Snapchat, last month reported a decline in users in the April-June period, its first quarter-on-quarter decline. Users abandoned the app this summer after an unpopular redesign, which Snapchat has now partly rolled back. During a call with investors, Mr. Stone warned that Snapchat’s next earnings report may show a further decline in daily active users, since the company tends to experience dips in daily active users during its third quarter.
The company’s stock has fallen more than 40 percent over the last six months. It fell over 3 percent on Monday after the announcement about Mr. Khan.
A native of Bangladesh, Mr. Khan began his career at a start-up before moving to Wall Street, making his name at JPMorgan Chase as a leading internet research analyst.
In 2011, he jumped to investment banking, joining Credit Suisse to strike deals for internet companies. It was there that he landed a coveted assignment: helping the Alibaba Group, the Chinese e-commerce titan, go public in 2014. Mr. Khan served as one of Alibaba’s closest advisers, shepherding the company through investor meetings on the path to what became a $25 billion initial public offering.
Mr. Khan came to Snap in 2015. He was in charge of turning a hot social-networking start-up into a durable company. Analysts likened his role to that of Sheryl Sandberg, who joined Facebook in 2008 to handle business roles like advertising sales.
Among Mr. Khan’s chief responsibilities was to build an advertising business for a platform built on disappearing videos favored by young people. His response: building up a sales staff and helping develop new kinds of ads that fit on Snapchat’s platform, including so-called lenses that let users add computer-generated images onto their photos and videos.
By last year, Snap’s advertising operations generated roughly $829 million in revenue, and it is expected to collect some $1 billion this year.
He also worked closely with bankers to guide the company through its initial offering.
“We won’t miss a beat during this period,” Mr. Khan wrote in a companywide email about his departure obtained by The Times. “And you will be left in better hands than my own.”
Mr. Spiegel, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement that Mr. Khan had “been a great partner building our business.”
“We appreciate all of his hard work and wish him the best,” he added.
Follow Kate Conger and Michael J. de la Merced on Twitter: @kateconger and @m_delamerced.
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