Robinhood, known for its popular stock-trading app
that made a splash during the GameStop fiasco, named Google vet Aparna Chennapragada as its first chief product officer.
Chennapragada, an MIT graduate, held senior positions at
Google for more than a dozen years, such as technical assistant to the CEO, director and group product manager for Google Now, and senior product manager for Google Search.
Throughout her time
at Google, she led multiple product efforts in Google Assistant, Search and YouTube. She also has a seat on the board at Capital One, and held a position for nine years as architect at Akamai
Technologies.
Vlad Tenev, CEO and co-founder of Robinhood, wrote in a post that it recently became clear what Robinhood can do for the world. “I look forward to learning from Aparna as
we build delightful product experiences and work towards democratizing finance for all,” he wrote.
In her new role at Robinhood, Chennapragada will oversee all product, design and
research, the announcement made on the company’s website.
Robinhood made headlines earlier this year when a group of individual investors used Reddit and the subreddit Wallstreetbets to
short GameStop stock, driving shares higher for a variety of public companies. The move drove Robinhood to raise additional capital as an increase number of trades took place on its digital trading
platform. Hedge funds that had held short positions in GameStop lost.
On Wednesday, the House Committee on Financial Services hosted a hearing about the GameStop, Robinhood, and
Reddit trading event.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, gave the opening statement. She acknowledged her intent to scrutinize these events and the related policy issues, is to ensure that U.S.
capital markets are fair and transparent, that investors have strong protections, and that Wall Street is accountable and beneficial to the American economy.