In an email leaked to Insider about the announcement, Stripe wrote: "We kicked off our search for this role in May 2019 and since then have spoken with many of the industry's leading lights. It took a while to find the right person, but we couldn't have gotten luckier with Shannon." Brayton was previously at LinkedIn for nine years as chief marketing officer. In the email, she said she met John Collison, the CEO of Stripe, almost four years ago and has always kept the company on her radar. Stripe is one of the world's most valuable startups, last valued at $36 billion earlier this year. In November, Stripe reportedly entered talks to raise a new funding round that could value the unicorn startup at more than $70 billion or as much as $100 billion, according to Bloomberg's Katie Roof