Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, has made a significant investment in its Australian operations with a raft of high-profile appointments.

The move, which sees the company poach talent from Meta, TikTok, and Pinterest, is part of Snap Inc.'s strategic push to expand its footprint in the Australian market.

Among the new hires are Dina Bailey, who takes on the role of A/NZ Agency Lead, Daniel King, who has been appointed Senior Client Partner, and Elise Keeling, who steps into the position of A/NZ Product Marketing Lead. All three join Snap from Meta - Bailey was former agency partner at Meta, while Keeling spent eight years with Facebook's parent company, most recently across monetisation product strategy. King previously worked on advertising value and also boasts of experience at GroupM.

The company has also welcomed Rob Fitzpatrick and Bethany Rao-Davies, both ex-TikTok, as Senior Client Partner and Senior Account Manager respectively. Fitzpatrick was most recently responsible for building out the finance portfolio and leading government accounts at TikTok, and also held roles at Google. Rao-Davies spent three years at TikTok as team lead of strategic sales and new business.

Sarah Ding, formerly an A/NZ SMB account manager at Pinterest, rounds out the new additions as Account Manager.

Tony Keusgen, Managing Director for Snap Inc. in Australia and New Zealand, expressed his enthusiasm for the bolstered team.

"Snapchat’s local community is vastly bigger and more engaged than I ever imagined before joining the company, with more than 8 million people in Australia coming to the platform every month," he said.

Keusgen also outlined an ambitious goal for the company, stating his intention for every brand in Australia targeting the under-40 demographic to partner with Snapchat. This aspiration is underpinned by Snapchat's reach in Australia, with the platform engaging 80% of 13-24 year-olds and 75% of 13-34 year-olds. Almost 45% of Australian Snapchatters are 25 years or older, and users open the app an average of 40 times per day. Furthermore, 60% of the app’s Australian community interact with Augmented Reality (AR) Lenses on Snapchat daily.

Core products, which include Snapchat, Lens Studio, and its AR glasses, Spectacles, have seen considerable success over the past year, according to Leusgen.