Snapchat has poached staff from BuzzFeed and Twitter to run its first European office

Businessinsider reports: Snapchat has poached executives from a number of rival digital-media companies to staff its inaugural European office in London.

The search is still on for a European chief, but Business Insider has learned that the recent hires include:

Jonathan Davies,BuzzFeed’s former director of brand partnerships for Europe.

Camilla Schilbach, former GameAnalytics business development director, and before that the head of AOL Advertising UK group.

Tariq Slim, Twitter’s former head of telco and tech for the UK.

Adrian King, a former member of Twitter UK’s ad sales team.

Imran Khan, Snapchat’s chief strategy officer, is leading the European expansion and has been holding meetings with potential candidates over the past few months.

Further hires from other well-known digital-media companies are expected to be confirmed in the coming days.

Snapchat declined to comment on this story.

People close to the matter told Business Insider that Snapchat has been speaking to senior UK-based advertising and media executives about taking up the top European job since the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, which took place in the south of France in June.

Without a direct UK report in place yet, the new recruits will begin their roles reporting to Snapchat’s New York City-based executives. The aim is to officially open up the UK-based sales operation for business in November and the hope is to hire a European chief imminently.

Snapchat’s sales team had already been meeting with European advertising executives to present the apps’s advertising offerings months ahead of the London office opening — the UK is its second-biggest market — but it is only now that the company will have an official outpost here, one year after the company launched its first ad campaign on the app.

Snapchat has still yet to open its own office in the UK. “Snapchat Limited” first incorporated as a private limited company in the UK in September, registered to an office at 90 Fetter Lane, London, according to documents registered with Companies House.

But Business Insider understands this address was listed for accounting purposes only.

Snapchat is on track to generate $100 million in revenue on an annualized basis, according to The Financial Times.

The company’s most recently launched ad format is sponsored channels on its Discover content section. Earlier this week, Sony Pictures Entertainment bought a sponsored Discover channel to advertise the new James Bond movie “Spectre.”