Donuts appoints Bruce Jaffe as CEO

Donuts Inc. today announced the appointment of Bruce Jaffe as chief executive officer. Paul Stahura, Donuts’ co-founder and current CEO, will continue to serve in a full-time role as executive chair of Donuts’ board of directors. The company has also appointed John Pollard to the newly created position of chief revenue officer.

“Bruce has served on Donuts’ board of directors for over a year and, at my request, has steadily taken on new day-to-day duties,” said Stahura, who is the company’s second largest shareholder. “His deep operational experiences in the corporate environment, coupled with his enthusiasm for strategy and scaling high growth businesses make him an impeccable fit for Donuts.” Added Stahura, “I initiated this transition so I can focus on innovations that will help Donuts expand and remain creative. I’m confident that Bruce will lead us to the next stage of growth.”

Stahura will continue to assist the company with long-term strategy and innovation, including mergers and acquisitions, new business models, and partnerships with companies who are finding new utility for the DNS.

Stahura has been CEO since Donuts’ formation in 2010. Under his leadership, the company grew to manage 198 top-level domain names with more than 2 million registrations and over $100 million in bookings.

“Even with the success we’ve had, we’re still in the early stages of our journey,” Stahura added. “We’re a very entrepreneurial company and to this Bruce will add his massive scale and growth expertise and take Donuts through its next phase.”

Jaffe, who has been a consultant and served on the Donuts Board, assumed the role of CEO effective January 1. He serves on several public and private boards, has been an active technology investor, consultant and advisor. Previously, Bruce held a variety of executive positions at Microsoft, most recently leading its corporate development group where he directed some of the company’s largest transactions and strategic initiatives.

Donuts further said John “JP” Pollard, a global cloud-services veteran and serial entrepreneur, has stepped into the newly created role of chief revenue officer. Pollard is responsible for managing the sales, business development, marketing and public relations teams and will report directly to Jaffe.

Prior to Donuts, Pollard held various roles with Microsoft before leading the international expansion of Expedia. He later co-founded and was CEO of Jott Networks, a mobile phone voice service and application acquired by Nuance in June 2009. He was also co-founder and CEO of Elemental Foundry, acquired by Porch in 2014. Pollard has served as CEO In Residence at Madrona Venture Labs, as a board advisor for React Mobile, and hosts the @techvitamin podcast.

“I’m very excited to join Donuts,” said Jaffe. “Our founding executives, and in fact the entire Donuts team, represent the best and brightest in the industry. We’ve had tremendous success since our founding, helping shape an industry where new domain names grew by more than 200 percent in 2016, now totaling more than 27 million. Looking forward, JP and I are excited to help accelerate our growth and scale our business.”